Coat Hangers At Dawn

Leslee Unruh Tightens Her Tinfoil Hat On Fox News

2007-05-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

Leslee is here to protect all womankind from the evil plot of big pharma and pesticides to steal your children and babies by selling the pill. We couldn't make this shit up if we tried.

According to Leslee:
The big pharma illuminati is playing god
Women must be protected from big pharma
The pill and big pharma is a war on women, children and babies
Big pharma wants you to be like men
Planned Parenthood is in on the evil plan too
If you take the pill you will be forever unable to have children

This was where her bullshit became too much for even Fox News to tolerate. They called her on her claim that the pill would cause permanent infertility. There was also something about big pharma and pesticides being put into your body.

Then Leslee cuts into the discussion to announce she "wants more babies..more babies..we love babies.

Watch it here for yourself. We think this one outdoes her post election meltdown.

Leslee Unruh, Death Dealer Extraordinaire

2007-05-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

This comment to our blog was worthy of it's own post.

Big Liberal wrote:
I just wrote a research paper on why abstinence programs in Africa are a colossal failure.

Specifically, it seems that not only do abstinence programs not work, the program's "success" in decreasing the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Uganda is a misnomer. It's true, Uganda has seen a drop in prevalence (the percentage of Ugandans who have the disease), but not so much in the incidence (the number of new infections).

AIDS relief workers on the ground there attribute the drop not to abstinence programs, but to an increase in the death rate. Nope...it's not that abstinence works; it's just that people are dying faster.

Thanks, Leslee.

Many studies have shown this. The fantasy world abstinence program that Leslee Unruh is trying to export in a fashion the colonial British would admire is killing people and killing them faster in Africa. Uganda is one of the countries Unruh's failed programs is actively running in.

These programs are so dangerous because they tell people false information about condom effectiveness and discourage their use. This is combined with a program based on western conservative protestant ideaology about sex and marriage. This simply does not fit with the reality of life in these areas of Africa that do not operate on Leslee's tiny ignorant world view. The nature of relationships, sex, marriage and how women are treated in these regions is vastly different than it is in Iowa. The sum of all of this is that Leslee Unruh and her merry band of loonies are hastening and creating the deaths of more people in Africa while preventing the programs, tools and drugs that actually do prevent this from being implemented properly.

It does make one wonder if this is willfull ignorance or willfull punishment.

Abstinence Only Aids Head Resigns Amid Prostitution Scandal

2007-04-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

Bush Administration Deputy Sec. of State Randall Tobias and head of AIDS programs in Africa administration has resigned after his name appeared on the phone logs in the DC prostitution scandal. Tobias was a pusher of abstinence-only programs in Africa that excluded condom use and derided sex wiorkers.

Tobias admitted using the escort service for massages and not for sex. Yea. Right. A $350 an hour prostitute rather than a $60 an hour certified massage therapist? His lie, he can tell it how he wants. This does sound a bit like Ted Haggard's claims that he only used a gay prostitute for massage.

Tobias also used to be the CEO of Eli-Lilly. He supported the Abstinence-only no condoms programs but at the same time was working hard to undermine attempts to establish generic versions of extremely expensive AIDS drugs. Tobias worked to put more people at risk of AIDS while assuring big profits for US drug companies when they fell ill.

Of course Tobias would see this as logical. His abstinence-only programs DOUBLED the AIDS infection rate in Uganda on his watch. Both the religious right and big pharma should be pleased.

"There's no evidence in generalized populations that a broad-based use of condoms as the backbone of prevention efforts has worked," Mr. Tobias said in a March 10 interview"

Leslee Unruh is a big fan of Tobias, read about her support of him here, here and here.
Of course Unruh is a big supporter of Tobias, he held the checkbook to potentially write big checks for her Abstinence Africa program that has helped create the disaster in Uganda.
Between the recent news that:
Abstinence-only clearly does not work.
Information on condoms used as the cornerstone for abstinence-only programs is outdated and incorrect. Actual statistics for condom use are far better than they are stating.
Now the head of the programs she saw as her cash cow to profit and punishment has fallen.

Clearly if the head promoter of abstinence-only can't keep it in his pants maybe it is time to admit the programs are a waste of money.

A Solution To An Out Of Control SCOTUS

2007-04-19T07:21:00.000-07:00

Even others on the high court find the recent ruling on late term abortion procedures bizzare and at odds with a number of constitutional rights and previous rulings. The radical right has been trying for years to establish a rubber stamp for their unconstitutional policies rather than an unbiased interpretation of the constitution.

There is a remedy and it has been discussed by many groups in the past.

Impeach the judges that are repeatedly acting in their own interests rather than upholding the constitution.

It would require a largely signed petition of the public to demand that Congress take up impeachment. There would also need to be a 2/3 majority in the Senate for this to pass. It may not be possible today but with another swing in the membership of Congress and the White House it could be possible.

Hunt Goes To Court Monday

2007-04-19T07:15:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder. Roger "orange jumpsuit" Hunt goes to his first court hearing Monday at 1:30 at the Minnehaha County Courthouse. He will be asked to explain his laundering of $750,000 of illegal campaign contributions for Leslee Unruh's anti-abortion group.

A Response To The Scotus Decision

2007-04-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

This is long and a cut and paste but these two commentaries say it better than we ever could.

By Wiscmass

"As a young child -- I guess I was about 3 years old, given that my youngest sister is two years younger than me -- my mother had a late-term abortion. Now, to be fair, I don't know if she had a D&E or some other procedure -- it's a very painful memory for her, understandably, and I'm not going to ask her about it. But the circumstances were as follow:

The baby was sick. I don't know exactly what was wrong, but the doctors told my parents that there was only about a 50/50 chance the baby would survive to term. They also said the chances my mother would survive childbirth -- I'm one of four kids, and apparently the only one whose labor was relatively easy -- were only infinitesimally better than the probability of finding the missing WMD in Iraq. Even if my parents didn't have four children aged five or younger at the time, the decision to have an abortion would have been a no-brainer -- as painful a decision as it was, my mother's life and health were, are, and forever will be far more important than the potential for the life and health of another human being not even born yet.

And so my mother had a late-term abortion that saved her life.

I love my sisters, now aged 30, 27, and 26. They are my favorite people in the world and there is nothing I wouldn't do for them. Our other sibling, the one who might have been born, would now be 25 had s/he survived, and given the nature of my relationship with my sisters, I have no doubt I would have had a similar dynamic with my little brother or sister. But we would have grown up without our mother, and our father would have had to take care of us without his wife. Our lives would have been very different in so many ways I cannot count, none of them good.

Republicans like to talk about abortion as a right-to-life issue and as a family values issue. What of my mother's right not to die for the sake of a child that might not survive? What of the right of my father not to sacrifice his wife to the private religious agenda of male politicians in Washington? What of the right of my sisters and I to grow up with our mother? What of the right of God-only-knows how many other families not to be devastated by the unnecessary death of a loved one? What of the family value of not depriving children of their mother? What of the horrific long-term effects of such losses, not just on the family but on society as a whole?

I thank God every day that my parents had the good sense to do what was medically necessary to save Mom's life, and that Mom's doctors were capable of performing the necessary procedure. I mourn for all the families who will lose their mothers, sisters, daughters, and partners because of this insanity."

And this past testimony on the issue.

MRS. LINE: My name is Mary Dorothy Line. My husband,
Bill, and I are honored to be here today to speak for the many women
and families who have also come forward to tell their stories in
opposition to this terrible legislation.

Last April we were overjoyed to find out that I was
pregnant with our first child. Nineteen weeks into my pregnancy, an
ultrasound indicated that there was something wrong with our baby.
The doctor diagnosed a condition called hydrocephalus. Every
person's head contains fluid to protect and cushion the brain. But
if there is too much fluid, the brain cannot develop.

As practicing Catholics, when we have problems and
worries, we turn to prayer. As we waited to find our more from the
doctors, our whole family prayed together. My husband and I were
very scared, but we are strong people and believe that God would not
give us a problem if we couldn't handle it. This was our baby.
Everything would be fine. We never thought about abortion.

But the diagnosis was as bad as it could be. Our little
boy had a very advanced textbook case of hydrocephaly. All the
doctors told us there was no hope. We asked about in utero surgery,
about shunts to remove the fluid, but there was absolutely nothing we
could do. I cannot express the pain we still feel. This was our

precious little baby, and he was being taken from us before we even
had him.

This was not our choice, for not only was our son going
to die, but the complications of the pregnancy put my health in
danger, as well. If I carried to term, he might die in utero, and
the resulting toxins could cause a hemorrhage and possibly a
hysterectomy. The hydrocephaly also meant that a natural labor
risked rupturing my cervix and my uterus.

Several specialists recommended that we terminate the
pregnancy. I thank God every day that I had this safe medical option
available to me, especially now that I am pregnant again and
expecting a baby in September.

I pray every day, I really do, that this will never
happen to anyone else. But it will. Those of us unfortunate enough
to have to live this nightmare need a procedure that will give us
hope for the future.

And I thank God for President Clinton; we all do here.
the people who promoted this bill do not understand the real issues,
but he does. It is about women's health, it's not about abortion,
and certainly not choice. These decisions belong to families and
their doctors, not the government. President Clinton listened to us
and protected families like ours by vetoing legislation that would
hurt so many people.

Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

I'd like to ask Coreen Costello to come up and speak a
little bit about her experience.

MRS. COSTELLO: My name is Coreen Costello, as you
heard. I found out when I was seven months pregnant that my daughter
was dying. She was dying inside my womb. The complications that she
had posed severe health risks to me. One of the conditions she had
was polyhydramnia, where the amniotic fluid puddles into the uterus.

I had over nine pounds of excess amniotic fluid. My
daughter's body was rigid and it was stuck in a position that was as
if she was doing a swan dive inside my womb. Her head and -- the
back of her feet were touching the back of her head at the top my
uterus. There was no way to deliver her.

My husband and I have always been extremely opposed to
abortion. We consider ourselves very, very much pro-life,
conservative Republicans. For us, terminating this pregnancy was not
an option. For three weeks we attempted to turn my daughter so that
I could deliver her vaginally and naturally. We had one hope, and
that was that we would be able to hold our daughter alive for
possibly an hour, maybe two.

Over the three weeks that we carried her we realized
that that was not a possibility. She was dying and she would likely
not survive any labor and there was no way I could deliver her. We
had her baptized in utero. We named her Katherine Grace. We then
realized that our only safe option was the procedure that is being
outlawed -- is being attempted to be outlawed.

I am so grateful because today I am standing here before
you pregnant again with a healthy child. I have two children. I
have my health. I don't know how to tell you how important that is.
This was such a tragedy, such a personal family tragedy. Our
daughter will always be a part of our lives. There will always be
someone missing in our family, and that's Katherine Grace. But I am
so grateful for the ability to be able to go on and enjoy the two
children that I do have, to be with my husband, to be with my family,
and to be here today.

And that's what this is about. This is not about
choice. We made a very different choice than what we ended up having
to have. This is not about abortion, and it's not about choice.
It's a medical issue. And I am so grateful for President Clinton and
his ability to hear our stories, because we have been telling them
for a long time and a lot of people haven't listened. But this is
the truth, and this is what happened to us. And as painful as it is,
we are all here to share that with you.

Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

I would also like to thank Jim and their children, and
William.

Would you tell them what you told me in the office? Can
you do it? This is Tammy Watts.

MRS. WATTS: Hi, my name is Tammy Watts. I live in
Tempe, Arizona. I simply told our dear President that my story is
not so different from everyone else's. I have the heartache, I have
the same tragic story. I have the loss in my heart, as does my
husband and the rest of my family and friends.

The fact is this: I would have given my life and traded
placed with my daughter, Mackenzie. And in fact, with my pastor,
that is exactly what I prayed for for the three days we tried
desperately to find something that could cure her. You simply look
for a magic wand and it's not there.

I am so thankful to our doctors, who were able to
perform this very safe medical procedure, save our health, save our
families. And I am particularly thankful to our President, without
whom we would not be here. And he is a true blessing in all of our
lives.

Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mitchell -- and those are the
prints of your baby, right?

MS. WATTS: Yes, this is my daughter Mackenzie's
handprints and footprints. This is something that is very special to
us, and is something that we would not have if we did not have this
very safe procedure.

THE PRESIDENT: Vikki, do you want to say anything?

MRS. STELLA: My name is Vikki Stella, and I'm from
Chicago, Illinois. My story is basically the same thing. We're like
a family now. And at 32 weeks I found out that my son wasn't growing
properly, and when everything was all done and said and the
ultrasounds were in and I had the answer, I found out my son had nine
major anomalies, one including no brain. It did not show up on the
amnio because it was a closed neural tube defect, so those things
don't show up. That's for genetic research.

And I miss my son. But the one part I want to stress is
I needed this for health reasons. I'm a diabetic. Other procedures
would not have been what I needed. I don't heal as well as other
people, so other procedures just were not the answer. I could have
gone on and maybe tried to give birth to a child that would not live.

I didn't make the decision for my child to die; God made
the decision for my child to die. I had to make the decision to take
him off life support.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. And you have a baby here.

MRS. STELLA: Yes, I have a little boy here.

THE PRESIDENT: You have a three-month-old little boy
here.

MRS. STELLA: Nicholas.

THE PRESIDENT: Claudia, would you like to talk?

MRS. ADES: Much like everyone else -- we've all had
similar circumstances -- I was six months pregnant, 26 weeks into my
pregnancy and happier than I had ever been in my entire life when, in
a routine ultrasound, we found out that there was something terribly
wrong with our son. He had fluid in his brain that was keeping his
brain from developing. He had a hole in his heart, a hole between
the chambers of his heart so that there was no normal blood flow.

He had -- I won't go on with the details, but horrible,
horrible anomalies, and he stood no chance of survival. It was
something -- it was a chromosomal abnormality, called Trisomy-13. It
was actually the same condition that Tammy Watts's baby had.

Again, like everyone else, we begged for a cardiologist
or a neurosurgeon or someone that could fix my baby's brain or the
hole in his heart. And when we got the news -- I say this for the
people that say that we don't care and for the people who say we
don't want our children, and for the people that say we have no
spirit or no soul or no religion.

My husband and I are Jewish and we got the news on Rosh
Hashana. And when we finally had the procedure, the third day of
this grueling procedure, it was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the
Jewish year. And Yom Kippur is the day that you mourn those that
have passed, and it's the day that you pray that God will inscribe
them in the Book of Life.

We'll forever, and for the past four years and forever
we will mourn our son. We are very -- since that pregnancy,
unfortunately lost five more, but we are very blessed that in July
we're going to adopt a baby and we're going to be parents, and we're
going to have the child we so desperately wanted.

And we are all here, my husband, myself and all of the
other people standing behind me, we are all here as we have been for
months, fighting in Congress. I just actually came back with Mary
Dorothy from Sacramento, where we were testifying, where it is now in
the State of California. And we are all here for the women that
follow us, because all women deserve the finest medical care that
exists. And we are the blessed ones and we want that for them.

Link to the text.

A World After Banning Late Term Abortion

2007-04-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

Many anti-choice fanatics long to ban all late term abortions even if the fetus is not viable or the women's health is at great risk. But if that were the reality many women would end up dying, being permanently damaged and it raises the question of what do we then do with the progeny of these pregnancies gone wrong.

This diary post tells exactly what will happen if late term abortions are fully banned. Before Roe was law pregnancies gone horribly wrong were required to be taken to term or the fetus or mother died. So what happened to these horribly disfigured fetuses, the ones that actually survived outside the womb? They were mostly abandoned to the state that then warehoused them in state hospitals.

Some quotes from the diary:

"I also learned the how and why many people get into thinking the preservation of these babies is a form of sainthood. I think that as usual, these decisions are being made without considering all the unintended consequences."

"There are children born who had some inutero problem that stopped their evolutionary process. They can be born looking like a fish or pig. I was told in the old days, they were deliberately suffocated. I would consider this humane. Otherwise, some take years to die."

"One of the patient's I had that I can never forget was a boy baby(I use this term generously) whose body was about 15 inches and head was about 24 inches in diameter not circumference. He was about two. They said he had an IQ of 2. He did not swallow correctly enough to take a bottle. His parents refused a feeding tube so he was kept alive by holding his nose which made him open his mouth and a special pablum was inserted with an eyedropper. This took place for three minutes every hour."

"I saw children born without legs or arms and a teenager whoses head was as big as a bushel basket. They could no longer get him up because his neck would break from the weight of his head. I can't imagine dooming a child to a life time of pain and suffering. I could except it if a child has a mentality to reach out to people and get love from those people. But these children just were not there. It is just not moral. I just wonder how many people know these hospitals and centers exsist. I also wonder if the supremes need to make a visit."

There is a large level of ignorance and wishful thinking of people who think they are solving some great moral dilemma by attempting to ban late term abortion without fully understanding how totally bizzare deformity can be. These are not simple deformities that make life hard for someone but things that would make most people seriously reconsider their stance on the issue. Babies born without brains. Maybe the lucky ones with such severe deformities die as this comment mentioned.

"I worked in a newborn nursery. I've seen some of the babies of which you speak. We had one born without much of a head. It's facial features were sorta embedded in the lump on its shoulders. Those poor parents. That sweet infant died, mercifully."

Today, if the culture warriors get their way and ban abortion on a larger scale who will care for the result of their actions. How many of the anti-abortion protestors are going to set up, run and staff hospital warehousing facilities we don't have them today for a reason.

Leslee Unruh Parody?

2007-04-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

Well maybe just a general parody of the religious right and their obsession to make people feel guilty about sex and their sexuality.

Don't Tell My Parents, a project from the Volunteers of America has a spot airing on cable and local TV called Dr. Righteouson. It parodys the anti-sex education purposeful misinformation the religious right dumps on our kids. It makes one wonder if it is a direct swipe at Abstinence Clearinghouse and Truth4Youth. Both groups actively push misinformation and guilt at presentations allowed in the public schools.

Marriage Amendment Law Causes Womans Murder

2007-04-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

Alicia Sears is dead, murdered by her ex-boyfriend. Alicia was denied access to the normal domestic violence protections due to the Defence of Marriage law in Ohio where she lived.

We said this would happen. These marriage amendements, like the one enacted in South Dakota strip the domestic violence protection rights of non-married women who face abuse or death at the hands of boyfriends or those they live with. It can and will happen here.

Via. Kos.

Unruh Gives Political Advice

2007-03-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

Good old Doc Unruh is back at it giving us all chiropractic political directives. Unruh told Dave Kranz how the Republicans better put up someone who is a crazy religious anti-abortion loon like him or they will lose the election.

"Dr. Allen Unruh, a Sioux Falls chiropractor, looks for the real conservative. In a presidential primary, the nominee has to be anti-abortion. "If not, Republicans will be in for a rude wakening. They will lose," he says. "At a convention, I would vote for the most conservative man running. There may be a lot of people voting for a third-party candidate if they do not nominate a true conservative."

Unruh's comments elaborate the stalemate in the Republican party. If they let the religious loons run the show, regular Republicans and anyone outside the party will not vote for their candidates. If they don't let the religious loons run the show the religious loons will leave.

The fundamentalist vote was largely exaggerated in the last election but they do make a portion of their voters. Losing them just adds to the list of people who have abandoned the Republicans. Keeping them loses everyone else.

In the current fashion of who do people look like pictures that have been all the rage on South Dakota blogs, we have included one above. We always thought Unruh looked like the no neck narrator from Rocky Horror Picture Show.

HT to CCK for finding the news article.

Aborti0WNED

2007-03-08T11:25:00.000-08:00

Since nobody else has pointed this out. All four abortion laws proposed in the legislature have died.

What was that they said last year? If last years ban failed it would set back the anti-abortion groups by about twenty years.

Maybe next year our legislature could work on some better ways to reduce abortion, like a comprehensive prevention bill.

Sanford Falls

2007-03-07T07:14:00.000-08:00

We LOL'd!

Check out Scott Hudson's take on the Sanford & Son Healthcare.

House Game Of How Low Can You Go

2007-02-27T14:33:00.000-08:00

The Senate bill that would have required emergency room workers to inform sexual assault victims that emergency contraception exists. Not give it to them, simply tell them what it is.

In South Dakota information seems to be a crime. Avera Healthcare has heavily protested this bill including having lobbyists put a clause that would have allowed medical staff to not follow the law on personal religious grounds.

The entire bill is now dead. The sponsors of the bill pulled it after the South Dakota Taliban tried a very low tactic. They attemped to hoghouse (modify) the emergency contraception bill and turn it into an abortion ban. Two amendments were submitted in the house to attempt to change the bill. At least one of those was done by head mullah Roger "Orange Jumpsuit" Hunt.

Today's question is: Does Roger Hunt hate rape victims or is he just looking for any way to push his one and only issue in the legislature?

The Flawed Anti-Preschool Alligator Tears

2007-02-26T14:05:00.000-08:00

Add this one to the anti-HPV vaccine nonsense.

The people who are whining about the state's efforts to improve and standarize preschool programs in the state are crying alligator tears.

They are claiming that any sort of improvement in preschool programs will take away parents rights. That is about as flawed as their claim that HPV vaccines will turn your ten year old daughter into Paris Hilton.

Even if the state did everything they are proposing parents would still be able to decide where and how their children are educated just like they do for children in K-12. Children in K-12 can go to public school, private school or be schooled at home. So if state standards are created for preschool the only thing that might change would be that those who do not want to send their kids to a preschool program would be required to prove that they are actively teaching some of those basic skills to their kids at home. Nothing would force parents to send their kids to one of these programs - period.

What? Yes, you will have to shut off the PTL show, the 700 club and Oprah long enough to actually teach your children some basics if you don't wish to send them to public or private pre-school along with all those unwashed heathen children. So yes, you can continue to lock your children in your homes lest they be made aware of the outside world and its oh so wicked ways.

Nobody would be taking away parents rights, stealing their children or eating babies like certain tin foil hat wearing morons in our state are crying about.

SD Taliban Goes Medieval

2007-02-22T06:52:00.000-08:00

The SD Taliban is at it again. This time they are encouraging kids to go back to the good old dark ages. Where men married 12 year old girls and women were property. Ah the good old days of arranged marriages, adultery and chastity belts!

Will they be going on crusade to mow down some Muslims?

Will they be giving out largess? The poor in town might appreciate a hand out or two since aid funding is getting cut.

Will they be practicing the chivalric code of courtly love? Will it include the adultery part of courtly love? Courtly love is pretty kinky when you actually study it.

From the wiki for it:
"further solidifying courtly love as "love of a highly specialized sort, whose characteristics may be enumerated as Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love"

"The troubadour's model of the ideal lady was the wife of his employer or lord, a lady of higher status, usually the rich and powerful female head of the castle. When her husband was away on Crusade or other business she dominated the household and cultural affairs; sometimes this was the case even when the husband was at home."

Sounds more like a hook up swap for kinky old women, while the young girls are locked up.
Maybe Leslee is looking for some action?
Someone call Oedipus.

Big hat tip to Clean Cut Kid for finding this one!

Chlamydia Vaccine In The Works

2007-02-21T10:53:00.000-08:00

University of Texas San Antonio is in the testing phase of a vaccine against Chlamydia. Chlamydia can cause scarring and infertility, it also is hard to detect.

The scientists working on the vaccine have been able to get 100% protection so far in their testing on mice.

Feministing has more on the inaccurate information abstinence groups and Physicians for Life is putting about about this STD and how it will be another nail in the coffin of the abstinence only industry.

New Abortion Ban Dies in Senate Committee

2007-02-21T10:03:00.000-08:00

The Senate State Affairs Committee voted down the only abortion ban left in this years legislature on an 8 to 1 vote today. The only person voting for it was Gene Abdallah.

Attorney General Larry Long also made a comment to the Argus today "“We were unable to find solutions we were happy with . . . I’m not happy with the solutions in the current bill.’’

So the AG does not like the ban, the South Dakota Right to Life group is against this ban and the Senate shot it down with all but one vote.

But now the morality police in the legislature are going to try to force this to a vote in the Senate, they think they have enough votes to force the issue. Time to write your Senators and tell them enough is enough, get back to business.

They may very well have the 12 they need to force this to a vote depending on how some of the Senators feel about beating the voters over the head with an unpopular issue. If they could muster the 18 to pass it is another issue with a big maybe hanging over it.

Does anyone really want to go through two years of the angry and ugly cloud that hung over everything during the last public vote?

South Dakota, The Surreal State

2007-02-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

This should be our new state motto.

The Governor initiated a program using mostly federal funds (aka: someone else's money) to pay for HPV vaccines for any female who does not have insurance coverage to pay for the vaccinations. Now the legislature is trying to shoot down the program that already started. We have already head that some people want women to get cancer and see it as a form of punishment. One has to wonder if these are the same people who see AIDS as some sort of divine punishment and encourage its proliferation in comminities of people they don't like. It sounds much like murder by neglect.
Hog House Blog has details.

Some telling news about the real number of people who want to ban abortion. CNN has released a poll that shows only 29% of people want to overturn Roe v Wade. Incidentally that is about the same amount of people who still support Bush. Coincidence? Maybe a better statistic is that 29% of our population is insane and terminally stupid, or just evil.
Clean Cut Kid has details.

While the state is wasting more state time and money futility kicking the deceased equine of abortion, our state library system is being gutted. Maybe this is more subtle than a massive book burning. South Dakota already has one of the weakest library resource systems in the country. Just remember you can't attract all those professionals the state seems to be wanting to help grow ethanol, wind energy and medical fields if the state is an intellectual black hole.
Dakota Today has details.

Lead neo-facist gasbag Bob Ellis tries his hand at persuading people to adopt his distorted take on reality. What is interesting is that he uses the same very weak arguments the brown shirt brigade have been using since last year. So he is obviously out of real arguments and ideas.
The typical stuff. Claim condoms are the only form of birth control and are cheap.
Never mind that advocates of improved contraception use state that condoms are the least effective form of protection. Never mind all of the prescription forms that are 99% effective but cost considerably more. Also Bob wishes everyone would ignore the CNN poll we mentioned above that shows only 29% of the nation actually agree with Bob's position, not the majority he pretends do. We won't even touch his cherry picked pseudo science. Robbinsdale Radical has a nice velvet gloved smack down on poor Bob who has nothing left to say but the same old recycled crap.

Abortion Ban Passes House

2007-02-14T16:49:00.000-08:00

HB 1293 passed the house 45 to 25.
Now what the Senate committee will do with it is next.

THREE Abortion Bans Die In The Senate

2007-02-14T11:58:00.000-08:00

Three down and one left to go!

The Senate Committee reviewing these two bans killed both in one swoop dashing Roger "orange jumpsuit" Hunt's dreams of Southdakotaistan.

HB 1296 The Sonogram Bill, aka: Roger Hunt wants pictures of your uterus bill died after passing the house.

SB 172 aka: The 44 point type bill died in committee. This one would have forced clinics to post a rather large sign telling people nobody can force them to have a medical procedure (abortion) against their will. Well duh. Is that pile of forms people sign to see a doctor are for lining the cat box?

SB 172 aka: Make doctors Leslee Unruh's parrot bill. This one would have forced doctors to also tell patients what was on the sign in the lobby.

So three out of four gone in one day. These were supposed to be the moderate approach preferred by the SD Right to Life group and legislators like Brock Greenfield.

The last bill HR 1293 is scheduled to be voted on the House floor this week.

State Sanctioned Hate Of Brown People

2007-02-14T07:41:00.000-08:00

When brown people are outlawed only outlaws will be brown.
This is true nanny state legislation. The desire to control every level of society has just evolved into the absurd. Ironically the most of the legislation seems to attack women or things that seem to be used mainly by women.

Emergency contraception - not yours
Abortion - not yours
Tanning - not yours

Huh? Yea, tanning. Our esteemed legislature is working on outlawing tanning if your under 18.
(hat tip to PP at SDWC)

Yes there are some risks to tanning bed use. There are also health risks to drinking too much soda. The nanny state madness really really has to stop already.

If people are really up in arms about these things there are better ways to handle them rather than making more and more confusing and unenforceable laws.

If you want teens to know the dangers of tanning beds, make people sign a waiver informing them of the risks. Make stores post a sign in the lobby. Done, solved. Even adults may not be aware of the potential risks of tanning bed use. You don't need to make laws restricting teens use and potentially making store owners criminals.

Same goes for the smoking bans. Everyone has concerns for second hand smoke and the health of people working in such establishments. Does the legislature find a common sense approach? Noooo. Let's just ban that too. One common sense suggestion that has been passed around in non legislative circles was to make establishements get a permit to allow smoking. Part of getting and keeping that permit is to prove that you have installed proper air filtration and circulation equipment. It would require most places to install new high quality air filtration systems to comply but it solves all issues without blanket banning smoking. They either spend the money to make it reasonably safe for everyone in the bar/restaurant or they don't get a permit.

The Loving Catholic Conservatives

2007-02-13T14:43:00.000-08:00

Take a look at some of the loving Christian responses written to this woman.

Those are responses from conservative Catholics and Evangelicals. Feel the love.

Speculation On The New Abortion Ban Chances

2007-02-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

HB 1293 passed the House yesterday but speculation remains if it can pass the Senate State Affairs Committee to make it to the Senate floor. This is in addition to the new question if the law as written is even valid due to the part about sending it to the people to vote on.

So the next place this goes is the Senate State Affairs Committee, unless something with the referendum portion of it kills the bill. There have already been questions about the ability for another ban to pass the Senate Committee.

"(Julie)Bartling doubts it will even pass both legislative chambers. Although support appears strong in the House, she doubts sentiment is the same in the Senate State Affairs Committee. Testimony on the bill was scheduled to start Monday.

"I just don't think it'll make it to the Senate floor," Bartling said. "I've even talked to very pro-life Republican legislators that are not in favor of bringing it back this year. I think it's just too soon."

So we pulled out our Liberal Socialist Ubersexual Crystal Ball to do a little speculating about how the Senate State Affairs Committee might vote on this.

We went through the current members of that committee. We noted their name, political party, if they were on the committee last year, if so how they voted in committee on last years ban and also if they were in the Senate last year how the voted on the floor. We gave each Senator a plus or minus one point for political party, Republicans got a point and Democratics minus a point. The points indicate likelyhood of voting for the ban. Yes we know many Republicans are against these bans but hey. We added a point if the voted for last years ban in committee, no point if they were not there and minus one if they voted no. They also got a point, zero or minus based on how they voted last year on the Senate floor. New Senators of course got zero on that one.

Here are the results:
committee 2006 vote Score Probable vote

Abdallah, Gene G.(R) Last year yea yea 3 Y

Dempster, Thomas A. (R) Last year not there nea 0 ?

Gray, Bob (R) Last year not there yea 2 Y

Hanson, Gary D.(D) Last year not there nea -2 N

Heidepriem, Scott N.(D) Last year not there not there -1 N

Knudson, Dave (R) Last year not there nay 0 ?

McCracken, Royal "Mac" (R) Last year Nea nay -1 N

Nesselhuf, Ben (D) Last year not there nay -2 N

Olson, Ed (R) Last year excused nay 0 ?

Right now it is a bit of a toss up with

4 no
2 yes
3 maybe

Those three maybe votes are Republicans but not theocrats in general.

Our prediction is it probably won't make it.
Dempster voted NO on the floor last year.
So did Ed Olson.
So did Knudson

But as we all know with South Dakota politics, expect the insane, stupid and unexpected. If your in the districts of the maybe Senators you might want to send them a nice email asking them to vote no and thanking them for being so level headed last year.

SD Legislature: Keystone Cops Edition

2007-02-13T11:57:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a possible glitch in the newest abortion ban attempt recently passed by the House State Affairs Committee. Nobody is sure if what they did is constitutional according to state law. Not the taking away people's civil rights part. The part about taking a law directly to the people for a vote.

Keloland is reporting that Gov. Rounds has raised questions about the legality of taking something direct from the legislature to the voters that is not a constitutional amendment or an item that has been petitioned by the people to put it on the ballot.

Seriously. Nobody checked. None of our lawmakers that created the ban, none on the committee bothered to see if what they were proposing was even possible.

This is what you get when you have cowboys and weasely hack lawyers writing laws.

SDWC is on the case, doing some research to see if this is even possible. He did note that in some quick research he could not find a case of this being successfully done anywhere in the last decade. A couple of bills tried it but those bills never passed the legislature to find out.

Just remember that the guy who took this on this year who is the key sponsor of this mess is Gordon "women are like cattle" Howie. Of course the usual suspects like Bill "sodomized virgin" Napoli and Roger "orange jumpsuit" Hunt were there too.

Wilken Explains It All

2007-02-12T11:55:00.000-08:00

Doug Wilken at Dakota Today explains it all in his recent post.

"By now, it would seem that the SD legislature could better spend its time on resolutions for impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney than dinking around on dangerous crap like giving 10-year old kids hunting licenses and again doing their best to shove their stinky fingers into the crotch of every woman with more anti-rights theocratic humbug legislation."

He goes on in his post to outline exactly how wrong, criminal and evil Bush and Cheney's actions have been.

We have the answer to Doug's question.
The legislature won't do anything about condemning the actions of a pair of war criminals because they are just as evil. Maybe it is professional courtesy? Maybe to them they see nothing wrong with lying to an entire country and dragging most of the world into a war based on a lie?

So arming children and keeping them darn women in line seems so typical when you look at it in that light.

Gordon Howie - Knows What You Want Better Than You

2007-02-11T12:46:00.000-08:00

Gordon "women are like cattle" Howie has offically lost it, that is if he ever had it to begin with.

At a legislative crackerbarrel this weekend Gordie again proved that he is completely out of touch with not only voters but reality. He claimed that the people who voted down last years abortion bans didn't really want to vote down the ban but really wanted to instead vote for his ban this year. He went on again to recite that he would deny any woman an abortion for any reason unless death was the result. But Howie being the generous guy that he is will give those undeserving wimmins of South Dakota some useless exceptions because according to him that is what people voting against the ban really wanted, they just needed him to tell them so.

Howie goes on to claim that the concept that people are tired of this issue was solely a made up tactic by Planned Parenthood and that nobody else had mentioned "abortion fatigue". It appear then that Bill Napoli, Brock Greenfield, Julie Bartling, Jean Hunhoff, Charlotte Gilson and Ben Nusselhoff, all work for Planned Parenthood according to Gordie.

Video of Gordie's lunacy (opens in new window)

We would provide you with Gordon "women are like cattle" Howie's email address but he does not have one. It appears that email is beyond this lawmakers capabilities. Should we really have someone so inept they can't operate an email account making decisions about womens lives?

News tip and video courtesty of Robbinsdale Radical!

The Dark Crusade

2007-02-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

What do secret torture flights to Syria, illegal mercenaries, Halliburton, James Dobson, Rob Regier and laundry soap have in common? Read on.

This is a long post in two sections. One is the ground work and the other is why you should be concerned about this. Read on...

*A note on links. We link to the original source in most cases. In certain links we used a secondary source only if they also provide links to the original verifiable news story or source.

Wednesday The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held hearings on the reliance on private contractors in Iraq. Video of some portions of the hearings here, here, here, here. The video clips unfortunately were mostly of the families of contractors that died in Fallujah after being sent out with no training, virtually no gear and not even a map. The last link does feature the lawyer for Blackwater, the secretive military contractor providing mercenaries in Iraq.

Blackwater was not a direct contractor with the U.S. government or the Army. They were the subcontractor of a subcontractor and were not itemized or declared as a subcontractor in the documents and contract agreements with the Army. Link (pdf) The level of purposeful secrecy raised a number of questions not only from a financial accountability issue either. Government mercenary contractors were implicated in the Abu Ghraib torture. Blackwater has also been recruiting veterans from Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's army.

As a side note the swell guy that is the President at Blackwater claims that Abu Ghraib torture scandal was "phony" and went on to try to blame the National Guard General who had virtually no control or insight into the private contractors actions. What is this guys issue with this General? She is a woman.

Military mercenary contractors in Iraq have a long documented track record of human rights violations, reckless use of force, illegal violent criminal behavior, rape and worse. What has been even more problematic is that Paul Bremmer worked a deal so these contractors are immune from Iraqi law but they also do not fall under the normal war zone rules and laws of the U.S. military or Geneva Convention. Amnesty International has a long detailed article on the reckless violence and crime some of these mercenaries are doing in Iraq.

Blackwater has deep financial ties to the worst of the far right politicians including large donations to both of Bush's Presidential campaigns, close ties to Cheney, Rumsfeld and also donated heavily to Rick Santorum and Tom Delay. Blackwater ownership also heavily funds through a number of foundations they control, some of the most notorious far right political groups like American Enterprise Inst., Eagle Forum, Free Congress, Freedom Alliance and Heritage Foundation source-source-source.

Blackwater has not only been fingered as a deep subcontractor providing security in Iraq but also outright mercenary forces in the conflict. Blackwater's private airlines have also been involved in the secret rendition (kidnapping) of people to be tortured abroad. Blackwater may have had a hand in the "extraordinary rendition" of a Canadian citizen erroneously accused of being a terrorist. The Canadian was taken to Syria and tortured for 10 months.

Aviation Worldwide Services a Blackwater private airline has been documented as being involved in these rendition flights and has been seen at a former POW camp now CIA base called Camp Peary.

Presidential Airways is another Blackwater private airline with the same mode of operations and was also implicated in reckless practices that lead to the deaths of contractors and U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan.

STI Aviation a third division of Blackwater providing private air services in war zones and secret flights.

Frontline did a detailed report about the tangled and murky web of mercenaries and contractors.

Blackwater also had some very sketchy involvement after Katrina. They were hired by DHS to operate as armed forces with authority to use deadly force. Source - source - source

More about Blackwater's Top Brass:
Eric Prince, (son of Edgar Prince, a backer of Gary Bauer, a conservative activist and onetime presidential candidate). Eric Prince is a former Navy SEAL.
Since 1998, he has made nearly $200,000 in contributions to Republican committees and candidates, including President Bush and indicted former House leader Tom DeLay, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Gary Jackson, former Navy SEAL. Jackson is a to the core Bush backer.

Cofer Black, 56, joined Blackwater in February 2005 as vice chairman after three decades in the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.

Joseph Schmitz former inspector general at the DOD. He is currently under investigation for obstructing two criminal investigations of senior Bush administration officials. Schmitz father was a prominent member in the John Birch Society and involved with George Wallace.

Here is where things take a turn.

Eric Prince: CEO & Founder of Blackwater
Erik Prince is a billionaire right-wing fundamentalist Christian from a powerful Michigan Republican family. A major Republican campaign contributor, he interned in the White House of President George H.W. Bush and campaigned for Pat Buchanan in 1992. He founded the mercenary firm Blackwater USA in 1997 with Gary Jackson, another former Navy SEAL.
Erik Prince, who is a neo-crusader, a Christian supremacist, who has been given over a half a billion dollars in federal contracts, and that's not to mention his black contracts, his secret contracts, his contracts with foreign friendly governments like Jordan. This is a man who espouses Christian supremacy, and he has been given, essentially, allowed to create a private army to defend Christendom around the world against secularists and Muslims and others, and has really been brought into the fold.

Prince's fundamentalist stance has been described and documented as dominionist.

Prince runs or is high up on the board of the following organizations:
Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation
Freiheit Foundation

His sister Betsy Devos also has her own foundations:
Dick and Betty Devos Foundation

The Devos family owns Amway, Amway gave $4 million dollars to a Republican 527 group in 2004. Betsy Devos and her husband funded and built the new Family Research Council building in DC. More information on the large amount of money Amway is funneling to the GOP. Another source. Another source.

Both the Prince family and the Devos have donated in the billions of dollars to far right Republican candidates, 527's, and other far right policial election donations.

Prince's father Edgar Prince founded and funded Focus on the Family. The Prince family still is its major source of funding. Eric Prince sits on the board as the number two in charge of the foundation that started and continues to fund Focus on the Family. The Prince family also heavily funds the other offshoot of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council the political activist arm of FOF. A more detailed outline of Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and the involvement of the Prince family is here. Eric Prince was also an intern at the Family Research Council.

The Family Research Council is the force behind the South Dakota Family Policy Council and good old homophobe Rob Regier. Remember this group, the one that foisted the marriage ban on South Dakota last year? The marriage ban was funded and supported by the people who own Blackwater. The group that is secretly escorting people to Syria to be tortured, running hidden contracts with Halliburton and operating beyond the law in Iraq? Nice eh? Just think back about all of the people and churches that blindly supported this ban. Here's another tidbit about how they call the shots.

Remember the heavy handed effort Dobson and the Family Policy Council did in getting Thune elected?

Like anyone needs a reminder about how far up their colons Thune is:
Monaghan's second vehicle was a "soft" money PAC called the Ave Maria List. Its list of contributors include theocon Michael Novak, Amway magnate and current GOP Michigan gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, Cablevision and Madison Square Garden owner Charles Dolan as well as the late New York Giants owner Wellington Mara. The Ave Maria List was particularly active supporting John Thune's 2004 U.S. Senate victory over South Dakota's Tom Daschle.

It appears the local Family Policy Council is still at it and Thune is still quite involved. His wife was the key speaker at their recent meeting.

The Family Research Council, the group created and heavily funded by the Prince family and Eric Prince, owner of Blackwater, the FRC's president Tony Perkins was caught red handed with his direct involvement with the KKK. The Family Research Council, the group behind Thune's campaign and the group behind the marriage ban.

Yes this is a long post but it follows the connections. Two multi-billion dollar empires of two fanatically christian dominionist families are feeding the far right wing of the Republican party with billions of dollars in contributions and are the single largest financial force behind Focus on the Family, its related groups and many other far right religious theocratic groups.

The whole family values - anti gay - anti abortion- anti publics schools - theocratic conservative crusade was brought to you by the same family running their own private army that is under contract to Halliburton. Creepy eh? Make sure you bring this up next time one of the bleating theocrats starts giving you the whole family values line.

Abortion Ban Debate Monday In House

2007-02-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

The new "Handmaids Tale" version abortion ban HB 1293 will be heard Monday Feb. 12th at 10am by the House State Affairs Committee. Audio of the committee is posted on SDPB after the meeting.

If anyone knows if a live video feed will be available please let us know. SDPB does not appear to be scheduling broadcast of the meeting or archiving it on their site.

Planned Parenthood is running a contact your legislator campaign. Use the link to easily contact your legislator and urge them to get back to the real business of our state instead of dangerous, unconstitutional bans. Since South Dakota already has a trigger ban on the books this antic in the legislature is solely their attempt to force our state into paying for a multi-million dollar federal court fight for their pet cause.

Last Years Abortion Ban Was Not Necessary

2007-02-05T14:04:00.000-08:00

If last year was not miserable and angry enough for everyone on both sides know this:
The law was a total waste of time and there was already an identical law on the books. Leslee Unruh and Roger Hunt took South Dakota down the ugly path they did for no reason.

South Dakota has a trigger law identical to RL 6 on the books already . If Roe v. Wade is ever overturned we already HAVE a law on the books that would ban ALL abortions exactly like RL6. So the ban last year? Nothing more than an attempt to hasten the process and gain Roger Hunt the fame he so dearly craves. Now all those people bleating about how we must have this law on the books (RL6) can just give it a rest, we already do. Any more noise about how we "must have" another abortion ban is simply dishonest and really an attempt to trick South Dakota into footing the bill for a Supreme Court challenge. Us, one of the smallest states in the country. In order for any of these current ban bills in the works to take effect Roe v. Wade will have to be overturned, if it is overturned we already have a ban in place.

So WHY are certain legislators doing nothing but proposing bans year after year that actually DO NOTHING???

SD Progressive broke this one and has more details on this whole mess.

Put It On The Ballot Dammit!

2007-02-05T13:08:00.000-08:00

SD Progressive has the details on the beating and death of the right to work repeal in the legislature. Right to work is another of those purposely Newspeak laws. Right to work does not give you any rights as a worker, it makes sure you have NONE.

With all the stupid things we have had put on ballots over the years why not this AND a minimum wage hike? The right to work is a constitutional amendment, easily put on a ballot for repeal. Other states have left the minimum wage up to the voters. Since our legislature is again failing to do the work of the people let's do it ourselves.

2007 the year of the DIY legislature part 2.

HB1293 The Handmaids Tale Law

2007-02-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

Madville Times has a very astute posting about HB1293. This horrible bill should be referred to by everyone going forward as "The Handmaids Tale Law". Why? Because that is exactly what it is and people should be reminded of this at every turn.

Madville's post is so compelling we are reposting the entire thing. We hope no offense is taken in doing so but it is just such a good read.

Madville's post:

HB1293 -- Preface to The Handmaid's Tale

The latest abortion measure from the South Dakota legislature deserves to be voted down. It's more bad legislation that won't save lives. The courts could overturn it purely on privacy issues, citing the provision that forces women to report crimes to the police.

But the big problem with this law is the continued dishonesty of the proponents, who sound ever more like an American Taliban, seeking to strip women of their rights. Check out Section 1 of the bill, the statement of legislative findings:

[1.1]...a pregnant mother possesses certain inherent rights, that these are natural intrinsic rights which enjoy affirmative protection under the Constitution of the United States, and under the Constitution and laws of the State of South Dakota, and that among these rights are the fundamental right of the pregnant mother to her relationship with her child, her fundamental right to make decisions that advance the well-being and welfare of her child, and her interest in her own health

The bill begins with outright Newspeak. Where the bill authors speak of "rights," read "obligation." Why won't Roger Hunt and Marlboro Man Gordon Howie be honest and say they aren't protecting rights but enforcing obligations?

[1.2] ...the pregnant mother's relationship with her child is inherently beneficial to the mother; that a mother's unique relationship with her child during pregnancy is one of the most intimate and important relationships, and one most worthy of legal protection; that the history and tradition of our nation has recognized this relationship as one that has intrinsic beauty and benefit to both the mother and the child; and that this relationship is recognized as one of the touchstones, and at the core, of all civilized society

Now we take a dangerous step toward codifying an obligation for women to bear children. Does a woman who chooses not to bear a child somehow forever suffer from not experiencing that inherently beneficial relationship? Is she somehow less civilized? Does a rejection of motherhood somehow make her less of a citizen? If the legislature is so worried about providing "legal protection" of the "right" of motherhood, when will the legislature decide that women abstaining from child-bearing are not receiving sufficient counseling and must be informed (by force) of the importance of bearing children? (Those of you familiar with Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale should be able to see where this law leads.)

[1.8] ...an abortion places most women at greater risk for psychological distress, depression, suicidal ideation and suicide than carrying her child to full term and giving birth

Just to top it off, Hunt, Howie, et al lie with bogus science. There is no scientific basis for claims of post-abortion syndrome. Emily Bazelon offers a spectacular report on the issue in the January 21 New York Times ("Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?"). She notes that Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, a well-known abortion opponent, refused to comply with a request from president Reagan to issue a report on the health effects of abortion:

Koop was against abortion, but he refused to issue the report and called the psychological harm caused by abortion “minuscule from a public-health perspective.” Nor did Koop believe that the anti-abortion cause would be served by shifting its focus to the suffering of women. “As soon as you contaminate the morality of your stand by getting worried about the health effects of abortion on women, you have weakened the whole thing,” he said at the time in an interview with the Rutherford Institute, a conservative law center.

That was in 1987. Science has advanced since then... but no thanks to abortion opponents like "researcher" David Reardon, who is making a career of cherry-picking studies to cobble together a case for post-abortion syndrome. As Bazelon points out, Reardon even admits in his 1996 Making Abortion Rare that he is using rhetoric, not rigorous science, to sow doubt: "Even if pro-abortionists got five paragraphs explaining that abortion is safe and we got only one line saying it’s dangerous, the seed of doubt is planted."

Fortunately, real scientists like Arizona State University's Nancy Russo are busy refuting such abuse of science for political purposes. The real science finds no link between abortion and depression, suicide, or any other such harm. Yet our legislature continues to purvey these lies to further its goals.

I'll admit that I'm uneasy about abortion, and I'm open to a discussion about restrictions on it. However, I can't have a discussion with people who are willing to lie about their motives and their science. Lies should be based on truth. I will not support HB 1293 or any abortion ban in South Dakota until the anti-abortion forces can prove to me they really want to protect the rights and health of women, not patronize and subjugate them.

300 Women Take To Capitol

2007-02-02T07:16:00.000-08:00

Blogmore has some pictures and details of the Women 4 Women day out in Pierre.

Three hundred women attended. That is a pretty decent turnout for a weekday event in the dead of winter in Pierre.

Anyone who had the chance to attend and wants to share details?

Hunt's Court Date Scheduled

2007-02-02T07:05:00.000-08:00

Mark your calendars! Roger "orange jumpsuit" Hunt will be facing a judge April 23rd at 1:30pm at the Minnehaha County Courthouse.

Hat tip to SD Progressive who found this out.

This ought to be good. Too bad they could not schedule it in sooner.

HB1270 A Terri Schiavo Bill?

2007-02-01T11:09:00.000-08:00

Check out the language in this bill, it is rather fuzzy in its language but could it be a bill to prevent someone from helping someone end life support on a terminal patient?

The portion dealing with who could make this decision raises a few questions.

" If a patient with decisional capacity, an individual's declaration ~~contains a~~ ~~directive to provide~~ or power of attorney, or the guardian, attorney-in-fact or agent, or other person authorized to make a health care decision for an incapacitated person directs the provision of treatment or artificial nutrition and hydration under any circumstances, any physician or health-care provider who has responsibility for the treatment and care of the individual must provide the directed treatment or artificial nutrition and hydration in those circumstances so long as ~~it is technically feasible~~ its denial would, in reasonable medical judgment, be likely to result in or hasten the death of the patient . A physician or health-care provider who objects to providing such treatment may instead transfer the individual to a physician or health-care provider willing to honor the declaration, but must continue to provide the treatment or care until the transfer is effectuated ."

The language about who can make that decision does not look exactly clear that the person in question had given that consent. "Attorney in fact", "agent", "other person authorized".
Would it be a situation where a judge or other entity could try to declare who gets to be that authorized person? Anyone want to weigh in on this bill and its real implications?

It does raise concern when you look at the list of sponsors:
Rausch, Hackl, Hunt, Jerke, Koistinen, Moore, Novstrup (Al), and Wick and Senators Duenwald, Apa, Greenfield, Napoli, and Schmidt (Dennis)

Font Police And Lawmakers In La-La Land

2007-02-01T07:35:00.000-08:00

Robbinsdale Radical has a more detailed and thoughtful take on the Font Police in the legislature. He points out how the 44pt font sign that the legislature is demanding in SB171 is more of a state sanctioned form of harassment on a business than a measure to inform patients. RR is right, this measure really does put businesses at risk of violence. The very groups with the track records for this kind of violence have been spending more and more time in South Dakota. This is a real world problem they are creating. The bill does not require hospitals to post this sign even though hospitals perform terminations, the real intent of this bill is very transparent.

SD Progressive digs into the details of the lawmakers behind the new abortion ban HB1293, the ban with exceptions that don't except anything. They point out that sponsorship of this bill is about half of the sponsorship of last years bills. So they can only muster about half of the support as last time but the core sponsors don't see a problem? They also point out that this new bill with faux exceptions has not brought anyone over to their side. Not a single legislator that voted against the ban last year has decided to jump on board with this one. The one they claimed everyone would rally around because it has "exceptions". It is the same group of idealogues year after year. But those same individuals are voting against how their constituents voted last year on 1215.

New Abortion Ban: Orwellian

2007-01-31T08:40:00.000-08:00

PP over at SDWC has an advanced copy of the new abortion ban. It is quite Orwellian. The ban language starts out by telling women that you have the constitutional "right" to be pregnant and that "right" is benificial to the mother (they don't use woman anywhere in the text, just mother). It is clear they only see women as baby making machines thus the word "mother" because to these people that is all you are. So the ban is here to tell you that you really want to be pregnant, your just too stupid to see it so they are here to "help" you. Then they do on to proclaim that a "large percentage" of abortions are because women are "not truely informed" and that they are not voluntary.

WTF?!?

They are basing this on what???

Here we are again, the same load of crap the task farce tried to shovel last year. Women are too stupid to know what they want and only do things because they are stupid and forced to?? This is just beyond insulting. None of this in this law is based in any fact and is not supported by any legitimate research. This is nothing more than law based on someone's personal opinion.

Then they go on to again claim that abortion causes psychological issues, suicide and depression. There is a mountain of evidence and every major medical association has declared these statements to be false. So again we have one groups unsubstantiated propaganda put into a law.

The really Orwellian line is where they tell you that it is the states duty to protect your intrinsic right to motherhood. In real world language: we have decided that we can force you to be pregnant and stay pregnant no matter what you say, think or feel. This is nothing but a power grab on womens civil rights.

Now on to the details of the bill.

They stated that any person, not just a doctor that assists a woman even by procuring or selling something to them that they use to terminate a pregnancy would be guilty under the law. Someone obtaining an oral medication that could be used for pregnancy termination would also be guilty and punished under the law. Will they be arresting the store clerks at Bed Bath and Beyond for selling coathangers?? There are drugs on the market that can work as abortive drugs but have other uses. Will doctors and pharmacists now refuse to dispense these drugs for other reasons just in case they might fall in the wrong hands and get used for other purposes?

Then there is the health exception that isn't a health exception. The health exception states that only if the pregnancy would cause an irreversible damage to a major bodily function. The other option is if death is impending. Many of the health complications could kill someone, but also will reverse itself upon the pregnancy ending. So it becomes a rock and a hard place situation. This health exception is NOT a health exception and will not help the thousands of women each year with serious medical complications. Why? Because of the clause that the condition must be irreversible. If the pregnancy is causing the horrible health problem and the pregnancy ends that generally causes the condition to at least partially resolve if not fully. But left to fester that condition could put the woman's life at risk. So the woman would again have to wait til the condition is life threatening before terminating a pregnancy. Therefore puting their own life at unneeded risk due to a stupid law. Women with eclampsia, diabetes, heart conditions, Hyperemesis Gravidarium and a number of other conditions that can become life threatening to the woman would have to wait til the condition became life threatening before they could terminate. This health exception IS NOT ONE and would leave most of the health issues that are cause for pregnancy termination to not even be allowed. There are honest health conditions that can lead to death but again our state legislature has chosen to risk womens lives out of sheer ignorance and disregard.

Ah, and then there are the rape and incest exceptions. Let us start out by saying that the law enforcement and court system in South Dakota is a pathetic abuse system for victims of sexual assault. This is the case many other places in the country but South Dakota is behind the civilized world on this one. The only way a woman could obtain an abortion due to rape or incest is to be FORCED to file charges and participate in whatever police investigation and court proceedings. This bill forces victims to subject themselves to more abuse, degradation and harassment or be forced to carry a pregnancy against their will. This is simply abuse of the victim and the state does nothing to assure said victim gets any sort of fair treatment in the system. Many victims do not want to press charges or come forward. Doing so can be even more emotionally traumatic and damaging than the actual crime and victims can be the subject of retaliation. Law enforcement provides no protection for these victims. There is also the recent story of a rape victim that was thrown in jail after reporting her assault. Victims who are worried about old warrants or other issues would not want to get involved in law enforcement out of fear they would end up in jail. Under this law the victim would not be forced to submit to punishment or incarceration in order to hopefully terminate a pregnancy. There are also many people who simply have no desire to be involved with law enforcement out of simple fear. This entire forced prosecution is simply more harassment of the victim. This also forces someone to submit their private medical records to law enforcement and the courts, there is no method for someone to maintain their privacy. No one should be forced to hand over their medical records.

One odd line in the bill is that these people so offended by the idea that someone would terminate a pregnancy have no problem at all with you going somewhere else to get it done. So the issue they have been up in arms about is totally fine if it is done in Sioux City vs. North Sioux City.

So someone spent quite a bit of money to have this creepy New Jersey uterus chaser lawyer draft this up but the real implication of this law are awful. The short of it is that there is not health exception, only a death exception. Rape or incest victims get no help unless they are willing to turn themselves, their lives and their bodies over to the state.

So don't be fooled by the double talk, this one is no better than the other one.

Argus Leader: Legislature Should Investigate Hunt

2007-01-30T17:08:00.000-08:00

The Argus Leader is calling for the South Dakota Legislature to hold ethics hearings about Roger Hunt like they did against Dan Sutton for his misbehavior. The Argus rightly points out that Hunt's criminal actions demand their attention.

South Dakota Progressive also gives a detailed rundown of Hunt's excuses in his pleading to dismiss his date with a judge. One thing is clear, Hunt is running out of ways to weasel out of this.

This Story Will Get Bigger And Have Implications

2007-01-30T12:49:00.000-08:00

A pre-med student down in Florida was attacked and sexually assaulted after leaving the Gasparilla festival in Tampa. The student reported the attack when she went into a hosptial for emergency care. At the hospital the student received the first dose of Plan B. Upon police arrival they did a background check on the victim. They found an old restitution issue from a crime when she was a minor, current reports state that it may have been an error. The victim was taken into custody and thrown in jail. While in jail a female health care supervisor refused to allow the woman to take the second dose of Plan B the hospital had sent with her. The health supervisor cited "religious objections" to the drug so she denied the rape victim the second dose. The rape victim did not have "other options" she could not just go elsewhere as is commonly cited as an excuse by those that support denying patients medications on the religious grounds of the healthcare employee. This story hit the blogs and spread, now the national media is picking it up.

Now fast forward to South Dakota.

We have the refusal law in South Dakota that a pharmacist can refuse to dispense a drug based on their personal religious grounds.
The new abortion ban in the works would force rape victims to file a police report. How many victims would fear reporting a rape that they might end up erroneously jailed or have some petty charge outstanding. Connecting access to abortion for rape victims to being forced to file a police report is a bad idea all around. It is punishment and harassment of a crime victim.

The First Two Abortion Bills

2007-01-30T08:17:00.000-08:00

Bill SB172 could be titled either the "Punch a woman in the face act" or "Give Alpha Center a desk at Planned Parenthood act". This is another one of these harassment laws. It would require medical staff to tell a woman a bunch of things and force her to sign a pile of forms. Some of the things writting into this are clearly not supported by real scientific or medical research. In fact the medical community holds that some of these statements are outright lies.

"That the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;"
"A description of all known medical risks of the procedure and statistically significant risk factors to which the pregnant woman would be subjected, including:

(i) Depression and related psychological distress;

(ii) Increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide;"

There is considerable medical evidence proving these statements to be false. Notice they finally dropped the abortion gives you breast cancer nonsense. That has been repeatedly debunked by the medical community. One has to ask, is it right for the legislature who are not doctors to be determining medical fact for doctors?

But some of their intentions really raise more questions. Some of the required statements if you use the facts of the medical community actually show abortion is a safe procedure that is far safer than carrying a pregnancy. So who's research will be used to determine what is the right information to present to patients?
The medical community will tell you that abortion carries fewer risks than pregnancy.
So then what is the answer to this required statement?
"The statistically significant medical risks associated with carrying her child to term compared to undergoing an induced abortion."

Does the South Dakota Taliban really want doctors to tell patients the truth that an abortion has fewer risks than carrying a pregnancy? Or do they have another of their alternate reality internal papers supporting their view of the world? So then what information does a doctor use? That of the medical community that is factual accurate research? Or do they use the trumped up pseudo-science of the SD Taliban? Do you think they will drag doctors to court for not using their pseudo-science version? We bet they will.

One of two things:
A. This is another of the far rights poorly crafted laws.
B. They are using this as a trap to drag doctors into court for not parroting their unsubstantiated talking points.

This one should meet the scrap heap for many reasons.

The other bill SB171 could accurately be named the redundant waste of time. This bill requires a sign be posted that says this:
"It is against the law for anyone, regardless of their relationship to you, to force or coerce you to have an abortion. By law, we cannot perform an abortion on you unless we have your freely given voluntary consent. It is against the law to perform an abortion on you against your will."

Never mind that you already have to provide and sign your consent for ANY medical procedure. But what most people miss on this bill is this:

"The posted legal notice shall be printed legibly in boldface type of forty-four points or more:"

Fourty Four point type? That is a pretty big sign. Go select 44pt type in Word and you will get an idea how large that really is.

North Dakota's Contagious Abortion Ban Fever

2007-01-29T17:42:00.000-08:00

The report below thanks to one of our readers:

" I'll quickly summarize, there are 2 bills left that have been introduced in ND and are still pending:
HB 1466: Outlaws abortion except to save the life of the mother. Would only go into effect upon overturning of Roe v. Wade. Passed the ND House 61-26. Now goes to the Senate. Called the trigger bill.
SB 2400: No hearing yet. Deals more with ND's state policy regarding child birth and abortion.

The other three bills (HB 1464, 1489 and 1494) were defeated on the House side. HB 1489 was the direct challenge to Roe v. Wade while the other 2 dealt with multi-fetal and genetic testing abortions and materials to be distributed prior to an abortion.

Info on the bills can be found at: http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/60-2007/leginfo/bills-res-jour/index.html (Note that the ND session meets every other year.)

I don't want to get you off topic since this area is about SD's pending ban (which I began following last year). I did a pretty extensive review of the ND bills on the 2007 Legislative Forum at http://www.bismarckdems.com/ if anyone is interested in reading further and have also been tracking press related to them and noting in the Forum."

Thanks to Keep Asking Why for the update on the recklessness of the ND legislature.

Wow, you have to read the text of SB2400. That one is a court challenge in the making. North Dakota is trying to give "full citizenship rights" to fetuses. That will end up in court as it goes against the constitution.

So far 3 out of 5 were shot down, one is clearly in violation of the 14th amendment, the only one left is the trigger bill that only goes into effect if Roe v Wade is every overturned.
Not a stellar track record even in conservative North Dakota this can't quite get much traction. The trigger bill and the obviously unconstitututional one will be interesting to watch and see where they go.
Updates on the progress of these bills would be great!

Keri Weems Proves She Does Not Understand Fact Or Science

2007-01-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

This gem was in the Argus Leader this afternoon
""The facts remain that abortion harms women and kills 800 innocent babies per year in South Dakota in my district," said Republican Rep. Keri Weems of Sioux Falls, who is a sponsor of the bill."

Keri is just feeding into that misogynistic Victorian era throwback idea that women are clueless and can't make their own decisions properly. Keri does not understand the difference between fact and opinion. It may be her opinion that abortion somehow harms women but the facts prove otherwise. Keri also clearly failed High School science. Since she does not understand the terms embryo, fetus and baby and their proper use.

We need to make potential legislators take an intelligence test before running for office.

SD Legislature Kicks Constituents To The Curb, Abortion Bans Part Deux

2007-01-29T08:46:00.000-08:00

Here we go again. Never mind that the public spoke quite clearly last November. It was not just the vote down of the abortion ban but the fact that many who were elected were elected because they said they would work on real issues in Pierre.

A couple of things have emerged as these two new abortion bans began being whispered about.

The crazy Army of God guys with the cameras and the fetus trucks are already back in town in Sioux Falls. Just the smell of a ban had them coming back to town. If either of these bans gets traction expect them to be here for the duration. Do we need to remind people that those guys have long criminal records themselves and deep ties to people who have bombed and killed for their cause. This group is listed as a domestic terror group.

The new ban does not have the support of the state Right to Life chapter, they are pushing their own version of a ban. So who IS pushing the new ban. Leslee Unruh and an out of state lawer from New Jersey who wrote it for her.

The other ban-lite is some concoction meant to further impede Planned Parenthood and harass women. It would require yet more crisis pregancy center drivel to be forced into real medical clinics with the intent to harass not help patients.

The main ban that has a bunch of co-signers and no sponsor would only allow an abortion if you filed rape or incest charges. The requirement to involve the law is more of an offense to rights and justice than the ban itself. This concept of forcing victims to endanger their lives further and possibly be victims of revenge by forcing them to go to authorities is wrong and could possibly be struck down by a higher court. Their false sense of compassion that they want to prosecute for victims is so out of step with the reality of crime victims of sexual assault that it defies common sense. The main ban also only allows a "death" exception. No health exception is in this ban. This was a huge issue with the last ban. The question between when an issue goes from health risk to death risk and the fact that women would be forced to let their health deteriorate until they are near death is reckless.

As mentioned earlier, there is no sponsor on the main ban proposed. It was pointed out that a bill must have a main sponsor. Guesses are that Gordon Howie of "women are just like cows" fame will be the baffoon to step up to the plate this year.

I guess the legislature just didn't get the memo that people wanted them to do the state's business this year.

Ted Kennedy Goes Off On The GOP Over Minimum Wage

2007-01-26T12:21:00.000-08:00

"The world has more than enough for everyone's needs, but nowhere near enough for a single person's greed." - Ghandi

Here Comes Another Abortion Ban Bill

2007-01-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

The South Dakota Taliban is at it again. They are going to try to push forth another abortion ban, this time with some exceptions though the details on that is mixed.

It seems that they have enough supporters in the House but are trying to gather enough support in the Senate. PP has the details along with the Televangelist letter Kristi Noem sent out begging everyone in the Senate to "pray" and asking them to support yet another diversion into morality legislation. What is most interesting is that the head of SD Right to Life, Brock Greenfield is NOT signing on to this bill.

Tell Herseth To Co-Sponsor HR 676

2007-01-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

HR 676 is being reintroduced. This is the plan that would allow people to buy into Medicare as a form of single payer health insurance.

The private healthcare system is quickly imploding on itself as they cut more and more benefits from their plans, drastically raise premiums every year and rake in record profits that rival the oil industry.

You can find out more about the bill here.
Or contact Herseth here.

Leslee Unruh Spotted Throwing Little Plastic Fetuses Around The Capitol

2007-01-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

SD Progressive has a report that Meatloaf has been spotted at the Capitol. Her bologna snarfing buddy Roger "orange jumpsuit" Hunt was smirking around Pierre earlier this week that he might have another abortion ban in the works. Tomorrow is the last day to submit drafts.

For more details on the wierdness that is Pierre you have to read Todd Epp's Apocalypse Dan series. It is even better if you have some of the soundtrack songs from Apocalypse Now playing, or at least humming the tune in your head.

Is The Legislature Homophobic?

2007-01-24T08:19:00.000-08:00

We don't get it. Roger Hunt has been charged by the state and is waiting for his court date for election fraud. This is one of the worst examples of trying to influence an election in our state's history. The legislature does nothing.

Dan Sutton gropes an 18 year old page and the Legislature drops everything. Now we are not saying that what Sutton is accused of is ok, it is not. Making advances on someone without their permission is always wrong. But the state did not see fit to press any charges and did not see any law violation.

Todd Epp mentioned last week that the atmosphere in Pierre has been rather playboy/horndog for years. Insiders said nothing has changed and the attitude of legislators toward interns and pages of the opposite sex has left something to be desired.
"My source, who is very familiar with Pierre’s inner workings and what goes on during the session, says the fraternity-like atmosphere of some legislators toward pages and interns of the opposite sex is as rampant as ever."

So what does this say about the legislature? Misbehavior is ok as long as it is a female your harassing? But if you direct that same misbehavior toward another guy they will send out the wolves.

Male Legislators groping women = ok
Male Legislators groping guys = get a rope

It sure looks like a double standard peppered with a large dose of homophobia.

Pandagon Puts Bob Ellis's Integrity Balls In A Vice

2007-01-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

Pandagon (yet another national blog) has taken Bob Ellis to task for his integrity ball nonsense.

Yesterday Feministing caught wind of Bob's sick women as someone else's property party and gave him a sound beating.

What is interesting is that Bob as of this morning hasn't bothered to attempt to comment at either site. Both allow comments.

(The integrity ball motto: Don't pee on my tree buddy!)

From Pandagon:
"In other words, the wingnuts couldn’t even do anything but reinforce sexism even if they were trying to be more egalitarian. Intergrity is a personal characteristic, and therefore suitable for men. Women have no personalities, apparently, and are just balls of flesh put here to entertain men and make babies, because we can only have “purity”, which is a euphemism that implies that unless your vagina has a freshness seal on it, it’s literally dirty."

"But the sexism doesn’t stop with the names of the balls. The reason they gave to the boys not to have sex before marriage is because it contaminates a vagina that belongs to someone else—and of course, the owner is not the person that should own it under the law of the land (that’d be the woman who has the body surrounding the much obsessed over genitalia)."

"That’s it in a nutshell. Girls, don’t have sex because it makes you dirty. Boys, don’t have sex because it makes girls dirty."

Feministing Gives Bob Ellis Another Beating

2007-01-23T15:22:00.000-08:00

We think he kinda likes it, he keeps asking for more. Feministing caught our post about Bob's resulting temper tantrum after they called him out the first time.

Bob went to his own blog to rant and pout. We are sure they would allow Bob to post over there if he really wanted to defend himself. Maybe he is just too afraid of having his chubby backside handed to him by a bunch of women.

What caught everyone's attention over at Feministing was Bob's nasty comment made to us a while back. Bob angrily emplored us to "go have a slut ball". The idea has caught tractions and some are considering it as a tongue in cheek fundraising event.

Just to think. Bob may have spurred a new idea that will bring tens of thousands of dollars to sex education and reproductive rights groups throughout the nation.

Thanks Bob!

More SD Abortion Fun And Games

2007-01-23T12:55:00.000-08:00

Denise at Hog House Blog is reporting that one of Leslee Unruh's out of state allies has been spotted in Pierre.
"Harold Cassidy of the Thomas More Law Center, a key player in crafting the abortion ban of 2004 (HB1191) was in town. I saw him at the Ramkota Monday night.

Word around the Capitol halls is that he’s here this time under his own steam, that legislative leadership and others are hoping to avoid an abortion debate this year but that Roger Hunt (sponsor of the 2006 ban, HB1215) is at this time planning to bring a ban with the rape and incest exceptions. No word on a health exception during my relatively brief cruising of the Capitol Halls.

It’s abortion fatigue, even for some of the leaders of last year’s big push. "

So Hunt is back at it. Maybe he is hoping to try to push through another ban before he faces a judge for his campaign fraud scheme last year?

Bill Harlan over at Mt. Blogmore has this:

"As abortion foe Rep. Roger Hunt was leaving the Republican caucus a few minutes ago, I asked him whether we’d have another abortion bill. “We still have four or five days to file,” he said. (next Tuesday’s the deadline.) “Just wait and see.” He was smiling when he said it. You read the tea leaves."

There are a few days left for them to attempt to file this. Please, somebody, anybody. Stuff this fat sweaty little man in a duffle bag and send him on a slow trip to anywhere. As Denise mentioned (and has been mentioned elsewhere) the legislature is a bit fatigued on the issue. Take some time out to email, fax or call your legislators and tell them to not waste time on Roger Hunt's little quest for glory and fame.

Progressive on the Prairie caught this little stunt in the Argus today:

"Jim Miles has a letter to the editor in today’s Argus Leader defending Roger Hunt and berating those who feel proper disclosure is important in the world of campaign finance and that South Dakota law should be followed. His ridiculous claims warrant a closer look.

Jim Miles is the Treasurer of VoteYesForLife.com. This is the group who failed to defend South Dakota’s restrictive abortion ban in 2006 and was also the beneficiary of $750,000 in anonymous donations that Roger Hunt funneled through a shell corporation to benefit the group. Not surprising that the Treasurer of a group who received three quarters of a million dollars in (essentially) laundered money is upset that they got caught."

It appears the SD Taliban are in moral indignation mode over their loss last year and are back in revenge mode. Just remember they still all have an election fraud and money laundering issue hanging over their heads. They should be reminded of this, often.

National Blog For Choice Day

2007-01-22T08:02:00.000-08:00

It is more than "choice". It is rights in all areas of reproduction and sexuality. Unrestricted prevention, sex education access, STD prevention, contraception, abortion, and the rights of pregnant women to control their medical decisions throughout a pregnancy to be carried to term.

The compiled reasons of blog contributors and friends:

1. Being harassed and verbally abused by pharmacists for trying to purchase prescription contraception.

2. Obtaining contraception in the 80's and even into the 90's was almost impossible for young women in South Dakota. Even today young women (and even adult married women) face obstacles and harassment.

3. Because we know that prevention works, when people can freely access it.

4. Because conservatives and "pro-lifers" don't give a damn about children after they are born.

5. Being intimidated and called names by protestors for simply seeking preventative health care. Too many young women have been called murderers for trying to enter a building to get a pap smear & annual checkup.

6. Watching friends be coerced into selling their babies to Leslee Unruh in the 80's.

7. Watching Leslee Unruh force her way into sex ed classes against the teachers wishes. Watching her lie about contraception, sex and abortion to high school girls. High school girls are not as stupid as Leslee thinks. Her lies were quickly debunked after she left the room. But she should not have been there spreading dangerous misinformation in the first place.

8. Knowing young women who were forced to carry pregnancies in the pre-Roe days against their will, forced into maternity homes against their will and then had their children forcibly taken from them. They were labeled unfit mothers for being young. Coincidentally this happened to white women far more than minorities. The adoption industry was making a fortune at this.

9. Stories of women frequently being denied emergency contraception or being refused because they didn't meet someone's morality test.

10. Life threatening pregnancies where abortion may be the only option to save the women's health or life.

11. Gerri Santoro.

12. Because South Dakota has one of the highest percentages of rape per capita.

13. Religious freedom. One person's religious beliefs should not control someone else's medical decisions.

14. The 4th and 14th amendment.

15. Eric Rudolph, Shelly Shannon, Michael Griffin, Angela Shannon, Paul Hill, James Kopp, Clayton Waagner, Michael Bray, Stephen Jordi, Army of God and Lambs of Christ, to name a few of the domestic terrorists who violently attack reproductive rights.

16. The harassment of doctors, clinic staff and their families.

17. Leslee Unruh, Roger Hunt and Brock Greenfield. These people have done more to motivate and rally together pro-choice people than anything else in the state. As long as these three continue to take away womens rights, we will be here.

18. Because women are fully capable of making their own decisions about their bodies, their families and their lives.

Read more blogs on Blog for Choice day here.

Feel free to share why you are pro choice in the comments.

SD Begins Distributing Free HPV Vaccines

2007-01-21T17:46:00.000-08:00

This is great news. Starting today women and girls 11 to 18 yrs can obtain the vaccine for free.
South Dakota is the second state to provide this vaccine for free. If you are 19 to 20 and Medicaid eligible you can obtain the vaccine for free through Medicaid.

Find out where to get the vaccine through the state program here.
Find out more about the state program here.

If you do not qualify under the program or Medicaid, and don't have insurance Merck is offering a patient assistance program for those who meet certain guidelines.

Does anyone know if Leslee Unruh has been seen weeping upon her Mary Kay collection over this?

We Are The Ubersexuals And We Are Here To Make Bob Ellis Cry

2007-01-19T18:50:00.000-08:00

Poor Bob just can't handle having the light of day shined on his buffalo excrement fest.

We posted earlier today about the flambe old Bob is getting over at Feministing for being a misogynistic patriarchal poopy head.

It seems that we are not the only people who find Bob's fascination with women as a commodity rather sick and wrong.

So Bob pulls out his greatest defense. Deny reality and hope nobody notices.

Here are Bob's great excuses

1. there's no way I could have included everything.

2.Males tend to think of themselves as bulletproof, so an appeal to the male to safeguard the welfare of others is more likely to be effective than to tell him that sex outside of marriage is just as harmful to him.
(So they didn't bother at all? Nice. )

The rest of Bob's rant is sort of a fluid disjointed suspension of reality.

* Note he never refutes the allegation that this kind of women as valued or devalued property mentality encourages men to think rape is ok in certain circumstances. He also failed to refute that they did not even once bother to tell the males at this party that THEY should stay virgins too.

Ed (1.20.07): Anyone notice Bob was trying to claim he (and those like him) have a respect for for ALL women and as equals, not just those they have enslaved into their lunacy? Anyone who follows Bob's rantings on the internet, not only on his blog but various forums and other blogs knows his stance on certain categories of women. He has repeatedly vilified the people he perceives as running this blog and has made attempts to dehumanize through sexist name calling and sexual accusations. Calling someone a slut is hardly respectful of women and clearly shows a disdain for "certain women". Bob has also gone on repeatedly on other sites dehumanizing poor women, single mothers, feminists, anyone who is pro-choice or not of his religious beliefs. He clearly considers them lesser human beings and has shown a great hostility toward them. That kind of dehumanization, hostility and the sexually biased nature is the exact mentality we mentioned that sets up young men to assume rape or other abuse is ok in certain circumstances.

Here is a tidbit of Bob's respect for all women:
"Instead of protesting the Purity Ball, why not have your own event and call it the "Slut Ball" or something? After all, if you hate sexual purity so much, you should be proud of being a promiscuous slut, right?"

But the Bob pulled out the big guns and called us "ubersexuals". Were not sure if he is trying to imply that were asexual or over sexed. It is hard to tell with Bob and his limited grasp of the language. Were not quite sure Bob even knows what an ubersexual is.

Ubersexual vs. Metrosexual

1. Both are passionate, but the ubersexual is passionate about causes and principles.

2. The ubersexual spends more time grooming his mind than his hair.

3. Both treat and respect women as equals, but the ubersexual considers other men, and women, his best friends.

4. The ubersexual is more sensual and not at all self-conscious. He doesn't need other people to tell him he's sexy.

5. The metrosexual gets his design tips from the Fab Five, the design gurus from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Ubersexuals get their ideas from travels and interest in art and culture.

6. The ubersexual knows the difference between right and wrong and will make the right decision regardless of what others around him may think. The metrosexual knows the difference between toner and exfoliant.

The current icon of Übersexuals is Bono. He's global, socially aware, confident, and compassionate, and he commands a huge base of followers who are fans of his music and his humanitarianism. Other notable ubersexuals are Bill Clinton, George Clooney, Jon Stewart, Pierce Brosnan, Donald Trump, and Ewan McGregor.

Yea Bono is pretty hot. But the Donald? Puh-lease.

When Will Hunt Face A Judge?

2007-01-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

Is ass patting a high crime in South Dakota while money laundering and election fraud are just fine?

Dan Sutton has been run out of Pierre on a rail by his fellow legislators over a "groping"incident last year. Epp at SD Watch confirmed that Sutton has left Pierre and might resign. He also mentions that the misconduct toward pages and interns in Pierre continues today. Epp mentions something about this:
"My source, who is very familiar with Pierre’s inner workings and what goes on during the session, says the fraternity-like atmosphere of some legislators toward pages and interns of the opposite sex is as rampant as ever.

So much for Dan being a wake-up call for more professional behavior from some of our playboy/horn-dog legislators in Pierre."

Our guess is that this is some of the male legislators, who think it is a state perk to be able to misbehave with female staff who are there in a service or subordinate role. If they were to try that kind of behavior in most corporate cultures they would not only be unemployed but facing a LAWSUIT.

Maybe lawmakers need to be bound by the state employees conduct policy while the legislature is in session, including while they are in Pierre during those weeks but not in the capitol building.
On the other hand if we did that last year we would have to fire a large portion of the legislature.

SD Legislature Just Can't Keep Their Hand Off Your Uterus

2007-01-19T08:48:00.000-08:00

They are at it again with another proposed abortion ban and a sneak attack in another bill to set the stage for more such bans.

SDWC has the scoop on both. Roger "orange jumpsuit" Hunt is trying to sneak in some language to an abuse law that would cause a legal loophole where they could attempt to prosecute women for child abuse for abortion. It would also set a legal precedent for classifying "unborn" aka: fetuses as people with legal rights. Its stated intent is to attempt to protect fetuses from drug abuse of the mother. Other states have done similar by locking up drug addicted pregnant women until they gave birth. This alone is very controversial. Since this comes from the sponsor of the abortion ban and he has shown a track record of trying to pass anything and everything to further his agenda it makes this very suspect. Roger is less worried about fetal drug abuse and more looking for some sort of law to be passed that he can then use as a legal stepping stone to abortion bans and with this in place, prosecuting women for an abortion.

Then there is Gordon Howie.

Howie didn't get the memo in November that the people didn't want an abortion ban. Take a look at this guy, is he really who you want making decisions about your reproductive rights?

Maybe this good old boy rancher is confusing women with his cattle.

Howie is proposing yet another abortion ban, this one with exceptions of some kind. Other legislators are commenting they are sick of the subject and the people clearly are tired of this dead horse.

Maybe if enough people give Howie a piece of their mind he will act responsibly and get back to the work he is supposed to be doing.

You can contact Gordon Howie to give him a piece of your mind at the information below or if your planning on attending Women 4 Women day in Pierre February 1st you can pay him a visit and tell him in person.

Gordon Howie's Contact info:
Fax: 605-393-0118
Business: 605-393-2334
Home: 605-393-2686
* Gordon does not have email. Why are we letting people who can not even operate an email account make decisions about women's lives?
His other contact information is in his contact link above.

National Blogs Blast Integrity Balls And Bob Ellis

2007-01-19T07:48:00.000-08:00

Feministing Blog says Bob's balls have no integrity.

They took on the oedipal and misogynistic nature of the "treat women as property" party held in Spearfish recently. To get the full effect you have to read the comments section. They truely give this bit of backward social engineering a complete beat down.

The fact that these events tell young men that women are property the more disturbing part is pointed out by the commenters. This idea that women are property and the only role men play in this is keeping their trade value intact. They absolve young men of any responsibility of keeping themselves from having sex or placing any blame or devaluing on the men, it is all about women's resale value. But what is more concerning is the mentality they are giving these young men about women who they do not see in this virginal resale value light. It says that women who are not virgins or not of their version of religion are exempt and therefore fair game. This sets up the idea that they hold no responsibility to behavior with other women, that they are fair game. This kind of mentality encourages rape, abuse and sexual harassment.

Herseth Stands Up To Big Oil Corporate Welfare Handouts

2007-01-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

Rep. Stephanie Herseth has sponsored a bill that will take back the big oil taxpayer handouts and put money into renewable and alternative energy.

HR6, The Clean Energy Act of 2007, also known as Ending Subsidies for Big Oil Act of 2007 goes to a vote in the house TOMORROW.

The short of this bill is that it will end the billions of dollars in taxpayer funded handouts to big oil that last year's Congress gave during the same time that these companies pegged record profits and gas hovered around $3 a gallon.

The bill also restructures how certain government leases and other monetary handouts will be calculated. This money will instead be directed toward alternative and renewable energy development and other conservation, energy efficiency and energy independence efforts.

This will free up $14 Billion in funds that can be used for energy independence.
This new resource could help ethanol, biodiesel and wind energy in the state. nz

Political Use Of The Internet Has Doubled

2007-01-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

"Twice as many Americans used the internet as their primary source of news about the 2006 campaign compared with the most recent mid-term election in 2002.

Some 15% of all American adults say the internet was the place where they got most of their campaign news during the election, up from 7% in the mid-term election of 2002.

A post-election survey shows that the 2006 race also produced a notable class of online political activists. Some 23% of those who used the internet for political purposes – the people we call campaign internet users – actually created or forwarded online original political commentary or politically-related videos."

Pew Internet & American Life Project

2008 will be an interesting year.

Our Hysterical Leftist Socialist Utopia

2007-01-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

Bob Ellis has gone and done it. He has exposed our hysterical leftist socialist utopian agenda.

So we decided to come clean and share it with all of you.

Our agenda is:

All hot dogs packages must come in compatible counts to buns. 8 and 8, get it right people.

13 items in the 12 item express lane should be a capital offense.

Flying cars, we want flying cars.

Cat boxes should be equipped with transporter beams and replicator systems.

Did we mention flying cars?

It should be illegal for any employer to request their staff be in attendance before 10am AND be cheerful about it.

Outlaw horizontally striped golf shirts, nobody looks good in those things.

Computer keyboards shall be equipped with air bags.

Classify pantyhose as cruel and unusual punishment.

Gourmet coffee and top shelf bourbon shall be classified as rights.

We Made Bob Ellis Cry

2007-01-17T09:43:00.000-08:00

Like a bag of holding or an everlasting gobstopper Bob Ellis and his lunacy is the gift that keeps on giving.

Earlier today we gave a sound debunking to the distortions and lies Cindy "tin foil hat" Flakol of the CWFA wrote that Ellis saw fit to post on the website of his fake newspaper.

Pointing out the facts, actual statistics and outcomes of the reports Cindy tried to distort and completely mis-represent to fit her cause sure got Bob's panties in a wad.

Part of Bob's temper tantrum here:
"In summary, the CHADs are good at pooh-poohing anything that doesn't fit their narrow socialist utopian vision, but they didn't invalidate anything Cindy said. I enjoy reading the CHADs because you seldom see such hysterical Leftist dedication here in South Dakota. And just as I sometimes enjoy a good smash-em-up action flick, I confess to a certain amusement in watching the CHADs make a train-wreck of all intellectual, rational and moral coherency."

Bob is like the kid in the cafeteria with the kick me sign on his back.
If you bother to read his full tantrum you will notice that he doesn't even address the actual debunking of the article that we did or an answer as to why ALL of Cindy Flakol's claims were proven wrong, not by us but by the actual studies she herself tried to cite.

You can read some more commentary from the other hysterical leftist bloggers and their socialist utopian visions about Ellis's story here:
SD Progressive: C.H.A.D Rips Cindy Flakol of the CWFA a New One
Clean Cut Kid: C.H.A.D. completely tears apart Cindy Flakoll of "Concerned Women" of America
But we can't forget our hysterical leftist leader in our socialist utopian vision, Republican Governor Mike Rounds since the state preschool program is his baby.

Keep up the good work Bob, you make our job too damn easy.

Our Hysterical Leftist Socialist Utopia

2007-01-16T18:21:00.000-08:00

We Made Bob Ellis Cry

2007-01-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

Religious Right Dons Tin Foil Hat About State Preschool

2007-01-16T07:55:00.000-08:00

We have busted the religious right on their claims against the state preschool program.

Cindy Flakol of the CWFA on crazy Bob Ellis's blog/fake newspaper is outright lying about the state preschool program. We got the goods on her deception.

Cindy starts off by mentioning the wrestler rape case out in Parker. She tries to give the impression that this crime is somehow due to preschool or the public school system. Nothing in the case so far has indicated ANYTHING related to this guys early life, school or home life as being a cause in this. But don't let that get in the way of a little vague fearmongering.

Then she goes on to question Art Rolnick who supposedly spoke here in South Dakota about the ECONOMIC advantages of preschool. She said he was here "begging" it looks more like he was giving the same economic presentation he has given all over the country. She goes on to question why we should listen to a guy who works for the federal reserve, as if he is out of his expertise on the subject of preschool. She misleads his role in this subject. Art Rolnick is the Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, not just some "representative" as Cindy tries to mislead. He was speaking on the issue of ECONOMICS of preschool and state return on investment. But we understand that ROI and state economics is probably over the head of a rancher's wife from McPherson County. Cindy also complains about not knowing the costs. The linked article gives that information, there is also a link to his original study. Of course they do not provide a South Dakota specific detailed budget for our program, that is not a researchers job but he does clearly outline the average investment and the return on that.

Then Cindy goes on to cite a University of Minnesota study (mentioned in a USA today article) and SHE claims it says that PRESCHOOL causes stress. Again Cindy does not have a clue what she is talking about and is being totally dishonest for her own means.

From the Minnesota Study:
"The second study, by researchers from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, found that in children under three years old, levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress, rose in the afternoons when the toddlers were in care all day, but fell on days when they were at home. "

The Minnesota study is on children UNDER THREE. State preschool programs would not involve children under three years of age. The study also referred to children under three who were in day care ALL DAY. The state preschool program would not be an all day program. So both of her claims were total bullcrap.

Then Cindy goes on to cite a Berkeley/Standford study. She claimed that the study said that children who attended preschool exhibited negative behaviors.

From the press release for the study:
"While middle-class children benefit modestly from preschool, youngsters from poor families experience two times the gains in early language and mathematics learning, according to a new study of more than 14,000 kindergartners nationwide."

The study clearly states that days longer than 6 hours begin to have a detrimental effect. The study shows that preschool has a clearly positive effect and an even more positive effect for lower income children. It shows that long days are an issue and clearly advocates for partial day preschool programs vs. all day programs. Cindy is working overtime to be dishonest about this. Wonder why?

Then Cindy goes on to cite NIEER and claim there is some sort of disaster brewing in preschool programs. The study shows exactly the opposite of what Cindy is trying to say it does.

From the study:
"The annual report on state preschool initiatives shows that state-funded programs increased enrollment by more than 100,000 4-year-olds from 2002 to 2005, but state spending per child is down and enrollment actually declined in 11 states."

"When NIEER began reporting on state-funded preschool programs for '02, 38 states were funding programs and enrolling 700,000 3- and 4-year-old children. By '05, those states served more than 800,000 children.

"This represents an astounding jump of 16 percent enrollment during those four years," said NIEER Director W. Steven Barnett. "When '06 is reported, a new program in Florida will likely add another 100,000 4-year-olds to the total."

However, 12 states had no state-funded preschool programs and over the four-year period, funding shortfalls produced enrollment declines in 11 states. "Clearly, these states do not yet treat prekindergarten as real education to be delivered in good and bad financial times," Barnett said."

Now Cindy pulls out the crazy hollywood liberal fear card. Of course she fails to mention that Rob Reiner has been a political activist for years and has his sights on the governor's office in California. She drags out an unflattering character he played in the 70's. She implies that Reiner is trying to do this nationwide. That is patently false. Reiner's idea was a state program only. It was based on a Rand study but just didn't get traction with the voters, probably due to the radical nature of Reiner's initiative compared to most state preschool programs. This was an initiative, not a program developed by the state and proposed to the people. California has initiatives just like South Dakota. Remember J.A.I.L.? Trying to paint Reiner's initiative as some governmental mandate would be to paint J.A.I.L. in the same light. Why so dishonest Cindy?

Then Cindy cites this:
"Daycare Deception, by Brian C. Robertson, a Kohler Fellow at the Howard Center for Family and a researcher with the Center for Marriage and Family at the Family Research Council."

Family Research Council is another of Fungus on the Family's groups and run by the likes of Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer. Yea like a far right fringe bunch of nuts is a reliable source. Of course they are trashing public education, that is their job.

The Howard Center for Family is equally as far right and looney as Dobson's group. Not a source with any sort of unbiased credibility.

Sorry Cindy, don't even try to pass off either of these groups as another other than far right looney propaganda machines. People are not that stupid.

She then cites a "child trends" study but does not give any information that would allow anyone to check her claim. In the same paragraph she mentions the same guy, Brian Robertson from the above mentioned far right propaganda groups so one can only assume it is more of his nonsense. An internet search did not pull up any journals or studies titled as such.

So in a close examination of Cindy's article it is completely unfounded and actually the opposite of what she claims appears to be true. So why would Cindy be so transparently dishonest about the state preschool program? Why did Cindy not link to the sources she cited? Why not even some footnotes? Could it be that since her article appears on Bob Ellis's website that maybe she is of the same stripe as old Bob?

Could it be that she is also involved in the movement to abolish the public schools just like Bob Ellis is? Since her article appears on his site and is trying to deceive people into thinking preschool is bad it seems rather obvious.

Sometimes pointing out how dishonest the religious right are is like shooting fish in a barrel.
We would like to thank Bob Ellis for giving us yet another chance to point this out to people.

Fundamentalism, Evangelism And The Destructive Theology Of Dispair

2007-01-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

How radical right religion exploits the dispair of its followers. AKA Why Sibby just needs a hug.

Disenfranchisement, suburban isolation from community, dispair and hopelessness of the working and now middle classes. The powerlessness people feel from the dominance of big corporations and the changing place of America on the world stage on their daily lives. All of these things breed hopelessness and dispair for many people who see life as too unfair and with no chance to change things. This has historically been the fodder of fascism and the fascism at the core of radical right religious groups.

These groups offer them an escape from the world they hate, it is a drop out mentality.

This also explains the rage these people exhibit towards anyone who challenges their mythical fantasy world. They fear being forced back into the reality where they felt helpless to the forces working against them in life.

All of the problems in life become evidence that nothing is worth saving and that the end is near. Instead of seeing the problems in our world as calls to action to fix these problems and shape our world into a better place they encourage these problems as ways to hasten the end.

Hedges outlines how the obsession with the apocolypse is about revenge. Those who feel screwed over by the world will get their revenge in the end. When they are vindicated by being the supposed chosen ones and the rest of the world will suffer as payback for all the bad things that happened to said person in their lives.

These groups encourage their followers to satisfy small bits of their desire for revenge through lashing out at groups who are not part of their movement. The systemized demonization of anything secular, gays, womens rights, muslims and anything intellectual are all easy targets for this rage.

This quote from the book says it all:
"They will have behind them tens of millions of angry, disenfranchised Americans longing for revenge and yearning for a mythical utopia, Americans who embraced a theology of despair because we offered them nothing else."

This becomes painfully clear if you follow discussions about political and social issues. The adherent to radical right beliefs are the first to tell everyone that change is impossible. It will never work, it is too expensive and too hard so just don't even try.

The ideas of all workers with a living wage, benefits, healthcare and retirement are too hard. Same with healthcare, education reform, overcoming energy issues, global warming and world peace. Its too hard so give up, adopt the fantasy and close your eyes to reality.

Progressive politics must see this for what it is. They need to offer real hope and show that it CAN be better and people can really make change.

Moderate religious groups need to step up to the plate and encourage people to join them and they need to put more public outreach focused on hope. They need to facilitate people to join in and make change that counters dispair. One such program some moderate religious groups have become active in is money management programs. These programs show people how to control their finances and get out of the cycle of debt and living paycheck to paycheck. This provides a very tangible method to combat dispair and gain back some aspect of control and hope. Similar programs tackling healthcare access and other causes of frustration could go a long way to draw people out of radical religious groups and back into mainstream society.

Offering real solutions that dovetail with religious beliefs may be the first step needed to get people out of the downward spiral of radical religion and the fascism it breeds.

It Is Never Too Early To Indoctrinate Your Sons Into The Patriarchy

2007-01-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

The crisis pregnancy center loons out west river are getting a head start on creating the next generation of misogynists.

After taking much heat last year for their purity balls (aka: cattle shows for teenage girls) they came out with the male version. Do they talk about why men need to save THEIR "purity" for marriage? Hell no.

It is all about them not damaging the goods (female property) and giving some other guy the sloppy seconds. Not once do they mention anything about why the males themselves should remain abstinent. The entire focus was on keeping women tightly controlled and how they can participate in this and the social pressure on women to be forced into marriage. Not one mention that these males might be damaged goods if they had sex before marriage. Only that the females would be someone else's damaged goods or they might end up buying some damaged female goods if some guy got to them first.

It Is Never Too Early To Indoctrinate Your Sons Into The Patriarchy

2007-01-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

Georgia Abortion Ban Antics More Bizzare Than South Dakota's

2007-01-15T07:03:00.000-08:00

Georgia has one upped last years dangerous, unconstitutional and crazy South Dakota abortion ban attempt. According to the proposed law doctors will be eligible for the death penalty.

If you thought the South Dakota law was full of propaganda and unproven junk, give the Georgia bill a read. They tried the old breast cancer claim that has been repeatedly proven as false. They also tried to claim that abortion will turn you into a smoker and ruin every aspect of a woman's life. They got carried away to the point of the absurd.

The upside is that the bill's sponsor Bobby Franklin is taking a massive beating in the media. Georgia Libertarians are fuming over the ban and one talk radio host had some rather angry things for Bobby Franklin. One of the major newspapers in Atlanta also did not have good things to say about the whole issue and stated that the bill stands little chance of passing.

Oh but things are surreal and bizzare down in Georgia. Blog for Democracy sat in on the "hearings" and blogged live. We use the term hearings lightly. It was more of a tent revival complete with a band. A freaking keyboard & guitar player performed at their legislative hearing. Oh and lots of prayers, preachers and women doing the testify thing. Not testify in the legal sense, testify in the tent revival sense. The brave blogger who sat though all of this nonsense got there early and saw the women speakers rehearse their spontanious testimony before the offical hearing. They also pointed out one convenient fact of the hearings. Every woman has the same story. Had an unhappy life, had an abortion, found Jebus. The last part seems to be key. Most of these women admitted they worked for crisis pregnancy centers or other fringe religious anti-choice groups.

Spacey Gracey has more pictures of the jebus revival at the hearing. Notice the big stack of women's testimonies they presented. Look familiar? Wonder if they are the exact same prepackaged testimonies that they brought to South Dakota. Anyone know how an average citizen can obtain copies of the documents from the South Dakota hearing? That big old pile of testimonies used for the South Dakota ban should be public documents right?

This comment on Blog for Democracy is freaking scary. One of the revival nuts was watching the person blogging over their shoulder and now the fundies are trying to harass and intimiate the bloggers. People wonder why we keep a purposeful low profile, this is why.

"Also- I never said I met you dear. I said

a friend stood behind you to read your blog
and see who you were writing. He made the notes
and gave them to me and others who know the blogs
you all are on.

Bernita and Grayson are being watched.
Your photos are circulating the capital and
the LOB. You were taped. This I know for a fact.
You are no longer secret spies who blog and
defame the character of well meaning citizens.
Please be careful. The cell phone photos are
illegal in the LOB."

Ah fun and games in Georgia. We will keep you updated as things progress. Right now it looks like it might not even make it to a first vote.

Far Right Fundies Attack SDWC Over HPV Vaccine

2007-01-12T15:31:00.000-08:00

Pat Powers over at SDWC is getting raked over the coals by the far right fanatical fringe over his comment that he thinks the state plan to distribute HPV vaccine is a good public health idea.

We seldom find ourselves on the same side as PP and he has taken more than his fair share of shots at us. He agreed with the governor, and both are right. It would be foolish to willfully ignore a preventable form of cancer.

The fundie brigade's comment that we should do nothing and simply let people get HPV as some sort of divine punishment since they don't approve of the behavior is insane. These people probably consider AIDS to be some sort of divine punishment also.

SDWC is a consistently conservative blog, but is grounded in reality. The lashing PP is taking has exposed the horrible truth about the state GOP. There is a faction within their party that is batshit insane, and they are going after SDWC with both barrels. Suddenly a bipartisan idea that most of the GOP doesn't have a problem with is just not radical right enough for these guys and they are eating their own.

This whole thing gets more bizzare when we realized that uber conservative AM radio host Greg Belfrage is on the same side of this issue as SDWC. Belfrage thinks the people attacking SDWC over this are out of their minds too.

Todd Epp over at SD Watch has also come to Pat's defence.

Clean Cut Kid weighs in on the issue and how dangerous the far right fringe is becoming.

It is a bizzare convergence. Gov. Rounds, liberal and conservative bloggers all in agreement on what seems like a cut and dry issue. Now we're all too immoral liberal pinko commie. Think about it for a minute. Belfrage? SDWC?

HPV Vaccine Takes Away Ability To Punish

2007-01-12T09:15:00.000-08:00

All the flap on the far right about the new HPV vaccine possibly being distributed for free by the state boils down to one truth. They don't want to lose their ability to punish women for their sexuality.

This is leap of logic reasoning the Unruh wing of the GOP is using to prevent the HPV vaccine from being distributed for free (or at all). They currently use this scare tactic towards teenage girls. Have sex and you be punished by getting cancer. Got cervical cancer? Good you filthy whore that's God's punishment for not doing what we told you. In their bizzaro world female sexuality is a commodity that men buy and sell. Fathers sell it to other men for their use. When you upturn that apple cart all hell breaks loose.

What makes this a humanitarian nightmare is that caught in this delusion are young girls who will pay the price with their lives.

This tantrum about the HPV vaccine was anticipated and it ties in nicely with their other issues. They hate birth control, they hate abortion, they also hate anything that has to do with women owning their lives. If you can control your reproduction and your sexuality you now own a large part of your destiny. Independence, education and career are much more attainable. Cervical cancer is just another tool of manipulation and control. They oppose the vaccine for the same reasons they oppose birth control. They allow women agency.

Their desire to control and punish women seems to be overtaking their ability to deal with reality.

The HPV vaccine protects virgins. Yes, their precious virgins. A female can be a virgin and get HPV through rape or from their spouse on their wedding night. Like men have never lied about their sexual status before.

95% of Americans have had premarital sex. So the fantasy about wedding night virgins is just that. You can lock up your daughter or buy her one of these. But odds are that her male companion has had sex elsewhere, unless he is 5% of the population. How are you going to confirm that one?

The vaccine is 100% effective at preventing 70% of the strains of cervical cancer producing HPV. It has an incredibly high protection rate.

What was probably the weakest argument coming out of the Unruh wing of the GOP was the complaint about tax dollars paying for vaccines. So do they feel the same way about smallpox? Polio? Mumps? Scarlet Fever? Public health protection is one of the most core uses of tax dollars. It is a form of defence. It protects the public from health threats. Just because it does not involve large numbers of buff men holding large guns does not make it less so.

This should be a no-brainer. Provide the vaccine to anyone who wants it and can't afford it. The dems support it, the moderate republicans support it. This is one of those issues that shows everyone who the truly out of touch political crazies are.

Bill Napoli's Burning Groin

2007-01-10T16:35:00.000-08:00

We all knew Bill was a bit odd after last year's "Sodomized Virgin" outburst.

Hoghouse Blog has this picture of Bill's new necktie. A burning sensation should be taken seriously, outright flames, you really should see a doctor.

Someone get that man an ice pack and some cephalosporin.

Hunt Pawns Himself

2007-01-10T08:45:00.000-08:00

SD Progressive has a detailed rundown of Roger "orange jumpsuit" Hunt's ongoing series of lies about his criminal activity.

Hunt was kind enough to make all of these admissions on the record with the media.

According to Hunt:
1. He admitted the money he gave Vote Yes was DONATED, but he claims it came from multiple people.
2. Then Hunt confirms yet again that the money was DONATED, but says now it was just one person who gave it to him.
3. Then Hunt claims the money wasn't donated after all, it was General Funds.
4. Then Hunt states that the company that just gave away $750,000 does not have considerable assets.

So a company set up during the election that has no real intended purpose, has done no other business and does not have any real assets gave away a quarter of a million dollars to a campaign. Now he wants to pretend he never mentioned the whole donations thing either.

The larger unanswered question is:
Is Hunt that stupid that he thinks any of this is a good case for what he did?
Or does he think the people of South Dakota are so utterly stupid that they will buy this?

If we do not prosecute Hunt and toss him out of the legislature it proves on thing.
We are truely a state full of morons.

Violent Criminal Group Votes Leslee Their Woman Of The Year

2007-01-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

Operation Rescue, well known for their obnoxious fetus trucks, run-ins with the law, and the criminal activity of their members has nominated looney Leslee their woman of the year. Courtesy of CCK.

Operation Rescue has a long track record of illegal activity. Many of its members have spent time in prison for bombings, firearms violations, death threats and other violent crimes. Operation Rescue has been vocal of its support for murderers Paul Hill and Eric Rudolph. One of Operation Rescue's key members Troy Newman brags about being a close friend of Leslee's and was in South Dakota repeatedly last year helping her work on the abortion ban. Newman has had numerous run-ins with the law and tax fraud. Leslee sure has an awful lot of criminal friends.
You can find out more about some of the Operation Rescue people and their long records of violence and criminal activity at Maggot Punks, a watchdog group that tracks Operation Rescue. Click on the each picture to get the criminal record and other information of the people involved.

Pendulum Swing In Pierre

2007-01-10T07:23:00.000-08:00

So far the agenda in Pierre with Rounds and the Legislature is quite different than last years theocracyfest. With a few of the bad apples out of the picture due to the recent election, the constant trouncing Rounds took and a general torches and pitchfork groundswell after last year's session things seem to be more reality based now. It will be interesting to see if anyone tries to propose anything stupid this year.

The topics this session seem downright liberal. In reality they probably seem that way because things were so off the charts to the right last year. Last year there were pushes to put creationism in the schools, dismantle sex-ed and replace it with a failed religious based abstinence only policy. Those are the ones that didn't get traction. The abortion ban, marriage amendment and pharmacists new right to refuse medications on religious grounds were just too looney for even conservative South Dakota.

The more sane state is discussing these measures this year:

Rounds is proposing free HPV vaccines to be distributed by the state. The talibangical far right don't want it and are probably pretty steamed that Rounds would want to help people not die from cancer. It will be interesting to see if anyone can rally enough opposition to even warrant discussion on making this inititative happen.

Rounds says he supports a state minimum wage hike. The Democrats support this and it has considerable public support. It appears the moderate Republicans support this also. Anyone disputing this is just going to be calling attention to themselves as being an unpopular idiot.

Rounds proposed state funded pre-school and the program is already underway in Sioux Falls. The only debate so far stated was a concern that it could hurt private preschool programs. The number of private pre-schools is rather small and many people who use them will continue to use them. They provide specialized programs, the daycare before and after the actual pre-school hours of the day and many other extras. Most parents that already use these schools and can afford it will probably stay. Parents struggling with costs will now have better options. The real impact though, is that more young kids will get that important early learning and this will have a huge impact on elementary education and the ability of these kids to stay competitive as they go through school.

These things Rounds has proposed. Most were Billion's campaign promises. Interesting.

Education funding is high on everyone's list. This is a good thing. Teacher pay is at least getting mentioned, it needs to go up. Taking a look at forced school consolidation makes sense too. What is missing is a real plan. The state needs to be looking further into how to best use our dollars and resources. How can we take advantage of technology and consolidation to provide services cheaper AND better. Students in rural South Dakota should have most of the education opportunities available in the larger cities. We need more statewide resources and programs and less redundant and costly district level versions. Electronic classrooms, computers and distance learning sound expensive but could save millions in the long run. Baby steps are good. If they at least address current funding problems and some of the things bleeding the system dry it is progress.

Campaign and ballot reform. There are proposals out there to change contributions and rules for campaigns. The new rules don't go far enough. Stiffer penalties and more specific rules are needed. A $50 fine for filing late? Make it a $1000 fine. They also need to make what Hunt did a felony. It is already illegal but with a misdemeanor hanging over your head, complying with the law is a low priority for those with other motivations. The ballot reform proposals are largely not needed. The two issues that should be changed don't make it harder for people to get an issue on a ballot, they make it harder for outside special interests to. Make it illegal to pay people to collect signatures, volunteer only. Require that all petitions have an explanation that is approved by the state that clearly informs the public what this petition does. Require the canvasser to have this statement for the public to view and copies to give someone if they ask. Make it a crime to falsely describe a petition. There were examples of outright lying to people by canvassers. Paid canvassers were caught telling people they were collecting signatures to ban abortion (not put it to a vote) before the petition was even filed. These were the paid canvassers who were also collecting signatures for the cel phone tax, medical marijuana and some others. They had nothing to do with the actual abortion ban vote. The paid canvassers for the JAIL amendement were also repeatedly caught misrepresenting the actual initiative and purposely covering up the ballot language with cardboard so people could not read it.

All in all, so far it's a tame session.

Pendulum Swing In Pierre

2007-01-10T07:20:00.000-08:00

Everyone Laughs & Points At Leslee

2007-01-09T15:48:00.000-08:00

We had really hoped to be focusing more on new proposed laws the first day of the Legislature but Leslee has demanded the media and anyone humanly possible pay attention to her. Sometimes you should be careful what you ask for.

Kelo ran a story this morning where Unruh insisted that everyone should pay attention to her unsubstantiated claims of signature fraud rather than paying attention to the pending court date of her partner in crime Roger Hunt. Hunt is due to face a judge to determine what will happen next in the ongoing investigation by the state Attorney General's office. The closing line of the story is just comedy gold though. After they give Leslee sixty seconds of TV time to set herself up publicly they pull the rug out from under her by pointing out that the Secretary of State Chris Nelson has told them that no, enough signatures were verified by their office to be authentic and the time limit has run out. Kelo went on to say that Nelson said there would be no investigation into Leslee's claims. Ta-Da! They made her look like a total fool and this was before 8am this morning.

Earlier this morning Chad over at CCK points out that nobody on the right is rushing to Leslee's defence over her new claim that had been made the day before. Nobody on the right want's to have anything to do with looney Leslee it seems.

By mid morning reports come out of Pierre that Leslee has shown up with some pink balloons at the Capitol publicly declaring Roger Hunt to be her hero. The guy who is facing election fraud charges for helping launder a million dollars for Leslee's failed ballot group to try to keep Steve Kirby's identity as the donor a secret.

But then South Dakota War College posts on the minor plea for attention from Leslee. They came to Leslee's rescue right? Wrong! PP has a picture of Leslee and the few friends she has left holding a sign about "Hero's of 1215". The comment at SDWC asks, what side were they thanking. Leslee just can't get a break, anywhere.

SD Progressive has the finale for Leslee's comedy of errors, complete with video.
Unruh admits the only reason she is trying to make a scene right now is to divert attention from Hunt's impending legal smack down. She also attempts to claim that Hunt should not be investigated because she says he has integrity. This is coming from the woman who barely weaseled her way out of a prison sentence for human trafficking not that long ago. Leslee is starting to look more and more like a criminal trying to help her fellow criminals and probably herself get out of trouble. SD Progressive also has the video of Leslee's latest public meltdown. We agree, it is better than the public meltdown she had on TV when she lost the election.

State To Provide & Promote HPV Vaccines

2007-01-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

Mike Rounds just officially kicked Looney Leslee to the curb.
Rounds is proposing using state and federal funds to provide and promote the HPV vaccine for young women in the state. The vaccine that prevents cancer.
Leslee will not be happy and this directly contradicts a large portion of her personal crusade.

Leslee spent a good portion of last year trying to convince the public that an HPV vaccine will turn your daughters into pre-teen sluts.

This quote sums up Unruh's reasonings and why she would want to deny young women the vaccine:
" Leslie Unruh of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse has said, "If you don't want to suffer these diseases, you need to abstain … I personally object to vaccinating children against a disease that is 100 percent preventable with proper sexual behavior."

Unruh's cavalier attitude about cervical cancer reveals one of the underlying problems with these programs. Under the guise of helping young people, abstinence education is actually putting girls' health and lives at risk. For these programs, "purity" is not about sex, health or even happiness. It's about a return to "traditional" gender roles at any cost."

Leslee just can't get a break.

Legislators Out Of Touch With Voters On Ban

2007-01-08T17:52:00.000-08:00

SD voters tell their legislators what they really think of their vote for the abortion ban.

SD Healthy Families has a detailed report about how legislators voted vs. how their constituents voted on the abortion ban. There are lots of very out of touch legislators in Pierre. 62 of the 73 reps who voted for the ban were rebuked by their constituents. Read the details in the report it gets pretty ugly for the legislators who thought they could use the ban to gain favor back home.

Looney Leslee Sends Love Letters

2007-01-08T17:29:00.000-08:00

Looney Leslee demands someone pay attention to her....

With her buddy Roger "orange jumpsuit" Hunt facing down a judge in his illegal campaign finance scheme and no love you long time from the state legislature this year Leslee is longing for someone, anyone... to pay attention to her.

She will do anything, no matter how pointless to get even a little bit of attention. South Dakota Progressive has the scoop on Leslee's latest pathetic cry for attention. The petitions have long since been verified, the election is over and done with, but for some reason Leslee thinks she can undo her entire miserable defeat by challenging the petitions to get it on the ballot. She would have to invalidate over 20,000 signatures and the time limit for challenging signatures has just like a dead parrot, expired.
So how is Leslee going to overturn tens of thousands of signatures that are not even open to challenge anymore? She's trying to use undelivered mail to prove her claim. As SD Progressive points out this is an utter waste of postage and paper and proves nothing.

Legislators Admit They Just Used Leslee For A Good Time

2007-01-08T07:23:00.000-08:00

Legislators love Leslee when they are hard up for a few votes. But after the election they quit calling.

It was hinted at last week by legislators that they are probably going to wait til 2008 (another election year) to possibly take Leslee and her looney crusade out for another spin. Now again this week more legislators are weighing in that no, they will save it for an election year.

So what will it take for this to sink in. Abortion is a vote getting ploy used by desperate legislators who think they can use it to get more votes. We are sure Leslee doesn't mind being used repeatedly as long as she just might, maybe get what she is after. As long as they are paying attention to her, since that public attention seems to be equally as important as her pet cause.

For this year the legislators are telling Leslee maybe she should quit bothering them and try for a ballot issue on her own. Of course next year they will be back telling Leslee all those sweet words so she will show up, make a public spectacle of herself and help get them some extra votes.

So when will the religious right sheeple wise up that they are being used by the politicians to get some easy votes and that they really could care less about their pet causes?
When will the rest of the state rise up against these idiot politicians who continue to do this every election year?

Hunt Is Being Dealt With

2007-01-02T19:11:00.000-08:00

Earlier today we posted urging that Larry Long finally do something to take action against Roger Hunt for his election campaign fraud. Well it seems he has. Long is handing this over to a judge to decide formally if Hunt has violated the law.

Now if they can get this done before the legislature starts. Then they can decide if they are going to allow Hunt to continue to screw with the people of South Dakota. Maybe common sense will prevail and they will boot Hunt to the curb. There was some debate if the legislature has the power to unseat someone or what they had to do before that could be done. If they can't they should make sure they write new legislation so that they can boot someone who committed a crime involving an election. They can give it one of those spiffy names like they like to give laws. They can call it Roger's law or the act to prevent sweaty little men from screwing with elections.

After Janklow killed Randy Scott he lost his law license. We were not able to dig up the details of how that was involved in his sentence. If possible the same fate should fall Roger Hunt. Since his crime directly involved his law practice it is even more applicable than in Janklow's case. Hunt is more of a threat to the public in the practice of law than Janklow, though we do not think Janklow should have gotten his license back like he did.

Hunt Must Be Dealt With

2007-01-02T12:33:00.000-08:00

Robbinsdale Radical has a post today on this issue and the Sioux City Journal also does.

There are questions about the ability to prevent Hunt from being seated, or at the very least censure him. No matter what the legislature does Long needs to prosecute Hunt and he needs to start that before the 2007 legislature starts. The legislature should not be waiting until Long is done with his process. This entire issue has dragged on far longer than it should have already.

The public has a right to know and to have recourse for what Hunt has done and to have his partner in crime exposed.

People Burned Out On Abortion Laws

2007-01-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

The RCJ today has a poll on the idea of future abortion legislation. As of this afternoon the poll was 68.8% of the people who did not want the issue brought up during the 2007 session. The poll is near the bottom right of the RCJ home page.

There was also a story in the RCJ about the possibility of more legislation this year. The commentary seemed to be not to mess with it this year and that the public support for more anti-choice legislation was just not there.

The Argus Leader also pointed out that the senate state affairs committee is not going to have enough people there to push forth any such legislation this session.

Odds of having something happen are slim but never underestimate the power of stupidity, the ususal suspects just might try to find a way to push something under people's noses.

Ten Questions - We Want Your Comments

2006-12-29T06:42:00.000-08:00

Someone mentioned that the best way to figure out a direction to improve things is to just ask people what matters to them. We put together this list of common questions about how things directly impact people. Post moderating will be extremely lax. As long as you don't go off topic, attack people etc. we won't edit or delete your post.

1. Have you had to change jobs within the last six years due to layoff, downsizing, closing or the business doing something so bad it made you leave?

2. Do you have a substanial retirement nest egg?

3. Have you saved up money to send your kids to college?

4. Do you worry about your level of savings, paying off your debts, or your financial stability?

5. Are you confident in our national security or are thing things that concern you about it?

6. Do you have health insurance?

7. Are your health insurance premiums taking a significant portion of your pay?

8. Do you have gaps in your health insurance that require you to pay large amounts of out of pocket expenses?

9. Has what your insurance covers gone down in the last few years?

10. What issue that personally effects you have we not asked?

Our To Do List For The 2007 Legislature

2006-12-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

Call it a wish list or a to do list, but these are things that we think should be addressed in 2007. These do more to ensure consumer protection, individual rights and move the state forward than do debates about sodomized virgins.

Make Plan B compliance more regulated.
Adopt the Illinois plan for Plan B. This requires pharmacies to publicly post how many doses are in stock. If a pharmacy stocks contraceptives they must also stock plan B and must make the sale without questions, lectures or delays. The rules for this must be publicly posted with a state 800 number to file complaints for non-compliance.

They should reintroduce the EC in the ER legislation.
Avera seems to be the big complainer of this citing religious grounds. If they want to have a monopoly on half of the healthcare in the state they will have to compromise and properly serve all of the public. Their denial is religious discrimination against those who don't follow their supposed belief.
The new law should require all hospitals to provide EC to anyone who asks without screening questions about marriage, children or morality means tests. If a doctor refuses on religious grounds the hospital must provide a doctor willing to provide the medication. They should also not be allowed to make dispensing plan B contingent on submitting to a rape exam.

Require full disclosure of doctors and pharmacists.
This should apply to all pharmacists and any doctor who ever sees patients for reproductive care, including all OB-GYN and all family practice doctors. Both doctors and pharmacists should be required to declare their stance on contraception and that they are either willing or not willing to prescribe or dispense them. Their stance should be posted publicly on signage at the check in desk and be provided to patients that ask over the phone. This stance should be denoted with a standardized symbol next to their name on the public signage at the front desk of the clinic or drop off counter of all pharmacies. Doctors or pharmacists who prescribe or dispense contraceptives will be required to do so based on medical information only. They will not be allowed to use means tests of marital status, children, age or other morality means tests. The rules for this should be publicly posted at the front desk along with a state 800 number to file complaints for non-compliance. Non compliance should be a $1000 fine per incident, and loss of license for five years in more egregious cases or multiple verified complaints. Consumers have a right to know up front if they will be denied healthcare, not half way through a doctor visit or after handing over their prescription. We would not accept such deceptive tactics in any other consumer service.

Regulate crisis pregnancy centers.
These businesses should be regulated and inspected just like any other business and a license should be required to operate. The licensing fee should be at least $5,000 per year to cover the administration costs of regulating these facilities. They should be required to only provide counseling of any kind by licensed professional counselors who hold a state license and have training from an accredited college program in the fields of family or mental health counseling.
Crisis pregnancy centers should be barred from conducting ultrasound exams. (see more on this later) Crisis pregnancy centers should not be allowed to print, instruct or otherwise distribute inaccurate medical or mental health information that is known to be unproven or false by major research, science or industry groups. Violations should incur a minimum of a $10,000 fine per incident and permanent revocation of their license for multiple offences. Clinic owners or board members who have had a license revoked are not able to apply for a license as owners or board members of future clinics.
Congressional probes have found rampant issues of clinics providing the public with grossly inaccurate medical information.

Ban ultrasounds from being done outside of licensed clinics and hospitals for non medical purposes.
There has been an increasing fad of non-medical ultrasounds for entertainment. These are marketed to expecting parents as a novel way to obtain a picture of the fetus to show family and friends. What they are not told is the medical risk from ultrasounds done in this manner and for reasons other than medical necessity. Sioux Falls currently has at least one of these photo studio ultrasound businesses. This is also a tactic of crisis pregnancy centers. Both these novelty studios and crisis pregnancy centers conduct these scans without a direct doctor's prescription and without a valid medical necessity. Ultrasound should never be done on a patient that has not been examined by a doctor and without a valid medical need. All of the major medical associations involved with sonograms and the American College of OB - Gyn have come out against this practice.

Institute a state drug importation program.
The state should implement a program identical to the Illinois plan that allows people to import prescription drugs from Europe and Canada from state-approved pharmacies. We should find a way to join Illinois program rather than inventing one of our own from the ground up. This will help South Dakotans lower their drug costs and in some cases could be the difference between people obtaining life saving medications or not getting them at all. Some drugs are as much as $200 cheaper through these programs.
This could be done with minimal state cost.

Some less urgent ideas:

Start a state education investigative committee.
We should be looking at how we can drastically overhaul the state education system. The goal should be to take it into the 21st century while not incurring drastic cost increases. More should be done to standardize day care and preschool so that more state certified options are available and there is less dependence on unregulated in-home daycare.

Increase unemployment benefits.
The current unemployment benefit is far lower than the adjusted for wages compensation in other states. People should be able to get 3/4 of their wages and up to a higher cap amount. Past cycles where large numbers of people were let go devistated families. The current rate is not enough for people to pay for the bare minimum of housing, food, utilities and gas to get around to find a new job. We should also do something radical and allow employees to use up to three months of unemployment as family leave for a new birth, for each parent without risk of job loss. Employees should be required to pay a percentage into the system to shoulder this. This is a real world action of valuing family.

Start an organized effort to get a rail line.
The economic development office should be compelled to explore and advocate for an Amtrak line between Omaha and Fargo to serve eastern South Dakota. There are a number of people muttering about this but nobody has put together an organized effort. Despite some conservative complaining about Amtrak and the purposeful under funding of it by the Bush administration it still serves a vital purpose to the country. As energy conservation and independence become more important Amtrak will become more vital and will eventually be re-energized. The reasons we have heard cited for putting in a line are that it would provide an additional selling feature to attract professionals and businesses to the state. Having easy access to two larger metro areas and access to the national rail system would be seen as a perk. It would allow people to have easier access to culturial and leisure options in places like Omaha. It would provide a more cost efficient and convenient way for professionals in a larger city such as Omaha to manage a satellite facility in South Dakota. It would provide another (and lower cost) transportation option for college students, seniors and those who can't drive. It would provide an alternative for travel during winter months when roads can be more dangerous. A line between Fargo and Omaha would allow people to jump from one major line to the other, providing more travel options nationwide. This would also provide a low cost option for travel. With airline travel being cost prohibitive, no national bus service in the state and high gas prices, another option would be welcome. Such a project would be a federal effort but the state could be key in spurring it into happening. This would be a selling point to new businesses looking at the state and another selling point for professionals thinking of moving to the state. South Dakota needs to start thinking first world instead of third world. If we do not quit treating ourselves as undeserving with limited opportunities nobody else will.

Look out of state for state revenue.
Increasing the tax on RV registration (can you say RV voters?).
Urging the credit card companies to consider being more benevolent toward the people of the state that allows them to loan shark the rest of the country might be an idea. Of course we could not force them to do this, that would be akin to a tax. But some public pressure and need to keep their image good with the people of the state might be enough to get them more interested. Yes they provide jobs but we provide the means for them to do business in ways most states would not. Encouraging them to make donations towards maybe oh, the schools or education programs could be an ideal option.

Our Predictions For 2007

2006-12-28T07:16:00.000-08:00

Here are our predictions for 2007:

1.The Roger Hunt scandal will escalate and he will be booted.
CCK posted last week that Rep. Dale Hargens will challenge Hunt being seated. There will be more pressure to deal with Hunt and Long's pending action is still hanging out there.

2. There will not be another abortion ban, just barely.
Republicans will again bring this mess up with a more moderated bill with certain exceptions. South Dakota is now on the national radar about this issue and they really stirred up a hornets nest. Expect all of the national watch dog groups and reproductive rights groups to have people, media and money already prepared to smack this down before it comes to a vote. State Democrats and much of the public are sick of this issue and last years debate exposed some truths about the people behind pushing these bans. The idea of a summer full of nasty divisiveness, crazy out of state protestors and poorly produced deceptive commercials will not go over well with a public still sick of the last time. Leslee Unruh is also not only facing a federal investigation into her fradulent tax return for not declaring her lobbying, she has lost the ability to get funding from Steve Kirby under the table. The million dollars Kirby funneled through Hunt's sham company won't be there next year and Kirby will not be willing to take the heat of publicly on record single handedly funding this. If a ban somehow does make it out of the legislature, expect it to be put to a vote, again.

3. Edwards and Obama will be the Dem ticket for 2008.
This will also be part of a drastic change in political candidates. Expect to see the fall of the fat old school white guy in a suit. People are tired of the uninspired failed and corrupt policies of the current batch of politicians. People see that drastic change is needed and the old guy network is not capable of creative thinking or being motivated to change things. Expect to see more younger innovative candidates at the state level too.

4. Fundamentalists will fall out of fashion.
This is already starting to happen as scandals like Haggard erode the illusion of moral authority within the religious conservatives. Dobson's power is quickly waning. He used to be able to fill arenas, now he can't fill a medium sized church. His influence over candidates has waned and political hopefuls do not see him as an asset anymore. They no longer provide a large enough cohesive voting base for the GOP or the Dems to bother with. Religious moderates will be the new hotness as will cross religion unity efforts.

5. 50/50 split on Johnson.
One of two things will happen and one is a sure bet. The sure bet is that Johnson will not give up his seat due to his recovery. The two possibilities are:
Johnson will fully recover and it will contribute to him being able to hold his seat indefinitely until he chooses to retire.
OR
Johnson will opt to not run in 2008. Herseth will obtain his seat in a landslide. A young progressive Democrat will take Herseth's rep seat.

6. National healthcare will make progress.
It will not be passed until Bush is out of office but it will get lots of attention in the new Congress. It probably will not get much attention in the 2008 election but will most likely be passed if we have a Democratic president and Congress. The health insurance lobby will put forth a huge smear campaign but will eventually fail since 80% of the people want some form of national health insurance. It will be a national health insurance with private providers and not a socialized medicine with VA type clinics.

8. Thune will not be re-elected.
Ok, this is a 2008 thing. Thune will not try to run on a presidential ticket. He will try to retain his Senate seat and fail. Without Dobson to rile up the fundamentalists and without the big money GOP machine that was behind him to oust Daschle he's got nothin. The family values scam played in 2004 has run out of gas. His record is uninspiring and he hasn't done much for the state. He will be ousted by either a conservative Democrat or a moderate Republican.

9. Bush will resign.
Pelosi has already said they are not preparing to impeach Bush, but they will let him hang himself with his own incompetence. He has already proven that he does not want to take any advice on Iraq. This will be his undoing. He will continue to follow his own non-plan in Iraq until it becomes such a mess that he can't make excuses anymore. When he runs out of diversions and excuses he will resign. Bush will resign before he will accept help or admit his own failures. This has been Bush's mode of operation his entire career.

Next up, our to do list for the legislature.

2006 Get Outta Town List

2006-12-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

Scott Hudson has the 2006 "get out of town" list. This was an annual tradition over at the Tempest. Anyone remember that? When we actually had a real indie newspaper in town?
You can read the entire list and Scott's comments on why they made the list at his blog.

Here is our $.02 on Scott's list:

10. Argus Leader Magazine Monopoly.
Good pick. Besides the reasons Scott mentioned these various specialty magazine intended to look like indie publications simply suck. The articles are rarely interesting and provide all the insight of someone describing an orange. They also have a tendency to favor advertisers and friends of the writers rather than actually looking for things of interest around town. It seems as if they are desperate for material. ETC. magazine and whatever the new indie they have at Old Chicago, Last Stop and Caribou are slightly better but hardly as good as they could be. Sioux Falls is still sorely lacking in decent independent media that does more than simply be a vehicle for advertisements.
9. County Courthouse Employees and Computer System.
Anyone who has had the pleasure of living in southern SF (Lincoln County) can tell you that it is worth the drive to Canton to have to deal with license plates. It may be a 30 mile drive but it still beats standing in the oppressively long line on a marble floor with the unwashed masses of Sioux Falls for at least that long. Scott is right, at least half of those windows are closed at any given time and the process is less than efficient. It could be easily improved. Blame it solely on mismanagement in the county offices. They need to get with the 21st century.
8. Playstation 3 Campers.
The only thing that could have made this better would have been a blizzard for these jerks. Similar things went on all over Sioux Falls on Black Friday with people camping for hot items like LCD monitors only to try to sell them on Ebay for a profit. Many of these people ended up not getting the big bucks they hoped for and that is Karma. A couple of things could solve this. Stores like Best Buy need to issue pre-sale vouchers, one per person on things like a PS3. Stores should limit one item per person on the hot enticement items on Black Friday. Having the first person in the door grab all of an in demand item with the intent of scalping them on Ebay is starting to backfire. As more people waste hours in line to not get that hot item, more people are abandoning the cattle stampede all together. The other part of the solution is to refuse to buy these items for inflated prices on Ebay.
7. Best Buy’s Geek Squad.
Anyone who actually uses Greed Squad gets what they deserve. Sadly, Scott had to learn this the hard way. The horror stories of Best Buy repair and Greed Squad since they are now owned by Best Buy populate the internet. This is what you get when you trust your computer to an underpaid, untrained employee of Best Buy. On that same note, anyone charging $10-30 to work on your computer, shouldn't be. These days your better off greasing the palm (well) of the computer guru at work in their spare time.
6. Pam Homan.
We still can't figure out how this woman got this job. It was not on personality or accomplishment. It seems like it was just the next warm body in line. She is not an innovator or even a good status quo administrator. Sioux Falls should start looking for some "rock star" school administrator with a really good track record of innovation and results. Give Pam a job with the city nit-picking building permits for violations or something.
5. Darrell Viereck.
The series of events that Scott breaks down are just screwed up. That is old school small town politics and just needs to go away.
4. Jodi Schwann.
Her nasal shrill voice is not missed. The woman could barely read the script she was handed. Nobody can figure out why she is work $100,000 a year here either.
3. Road Construction Planners.
What kind of hell will they unleash next year? Close down I-29, 229, 41st street and Minnesota Ave all at the same time? This years mess really should have resulted in someone getting fired in a very public manner.
2. Jail4Judges.
This is what happens when the tin-foil hat crowd is allowed to run amuck. If anything should be learned from this is that the general public should not sign any petition that they can not get a real explanation for. This is also a prime reason we need to outlaw paid signature gathering. If you can't muster enough volunteers to collect signatures your cause probably isn't truely supported by the public.
1. Leslie Unruh/Roger Hunt.
Well of course and these two go without saying.

Here are a couple that could have been added to the list or at least get honorable mention.
Steve Kirby aka: the mystery donor. Kirby was the one behind the million dollar mystery donor for the state abortion ban and is by most accounts the person who funded the money for Hunt's fake company that funneled illegal money to Unruh's failed Vote Yes group. This kind of dishonesty and manipulation of the public's right to rule themselves is inexcusable. Kirby's various businesses do not largely benefit South Dakota's economy so he needs to take off to another tax shelter state.

Bill "sodomized virgin" Naopli should also get an honorable mention. The national media picked up this hicks inexcusable statement and it became the face of our state for weeks. The image of some uneducated cowboy booted misogynist indulging his fantasies on national TV is now burned in the minds of our fellow Americans everywhere. Thanks Bill.

Another Mega Church Pastor Bites The Dust

2006-12-22T07:32:00.000-08:00

Were losing count. Today's bad pastor is Paul Williams, pastor of the 28,000 member Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis.

Williams is out after it was made public that he molested a family member. The current pastor, Steve Gaines is also in trouble. He knew about the molestation for months and took no action to protect Williams.

These are not church members that are falling left and right. These are leaders of large churches and so far all of them ultra conservative and very vocal about their right to be the morality police for society at large. There appears to be a disproportionately large number of conservative pastors getting in trouble.

Bay Buchanan Outs Herself As A Bigot

2006-12-22T06:11:00.000-08:00

There has been a dust up recently over Rep. Virgil Goode's bigoted commentary about incoming Rep. Keith Ellison's decision to use a Koran for his ceremonial swearing in, in his office.

If you have not read it yet here is one of the more offensive passages:
"if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped."

Never mind that Ellison was born in Michigan, converted to Islam as an adult and his family has been American citizens as far back as the 1700's.

It was Buchanan's comments about this issue that were completely out of line. She started with trying to make excuses for Goode's comments:
"I don't see any problem with any of the above, none whatsoever. I think what he -- what he is trying to say, which I think is a legitimate point, is that, as a nation, we should get control of our immigration laws, and make certain we have a national debate as to what is our best interests as to who is coming and who we are inviting into this country."

Nice. It makes one wonder what Bay's immigration test would be. White? check. European? check. The woman is a bigot but she knows coming right out with it would be socially unacceptable. She had no reply when she was informed that Ellison was born here. She also avoided addressing Goode's slam on Islam and freedom of religion and instead attacked immigration, something that is not an issue with Ellison's planned use of the Koran.

But then Bay gets really rolling. She tries to tap dance around her bigotry about Islam knowing that Goode is already being highly criticized for making his bigotry public. So she goes for the low hanging fruit and blames the Pagans. When all else fails go after the smaller group, the harder to identify, the one least able to actively defend itself.
"His religion, to me, is a strength, his strength. I mean, I will tell you what I'm far more concerned about in Congress, is -- than a Muslim, is the pagans we have up there.
I think they are a greater threat to us than anyone who has some religious beliefs ."

So exactly what is Bay saying? There are a couple of definitions for pagan. Websters refers to pagan as someone who follows a polytheistic religion, one who has little or no religion, or neopagans. Other sources define pagan as rural folk or anyone who does not follow a Christian belief. No matter what definition Bay wants to claim she is using all are rather bigoted, intolerant and attacking a group of people simply for not being like her.

If she meant pagan as in non-christian or those who follow a religion commonly referred to as pagan as a slang for lumping those beliefs she is quite the bigot. So if your not Christian or possibly Jewish your religion does not exist and your an enemy of the state? So the Buddists are destroying the good old USA? Maybe it is all those Wiccan lobbyists?

If she is trying to refer to those who do not practice a religion or actively practice one she is not only a bigot but poorly chose her words. If she wanted to slam athiests or people with more secular leanings she should have just came out and said it. It still does not make it right and it is still bigotry. Calling a class of people the enemy of the state because they have a differing view on religion than you do is still bigotry.

Option number three is the less used "rural folk" that was generally the Roman definition of pagan. That would mean she was blaming the red staters for the ills of the country. While that might be a very accurate statement it probably was not the one she meant.

The real problem in DC is people like Bay Buchanan and Virgil Goode spewing religious bigotry at other people and trying to claim that she has some sort of ownership over the country due to their religious affiliation. You could take every statement these two made and insert "Negro" in place of the other groups they are slamming and they would sound like David Duke.

What is quite ironic is that Bay Buchanan is a mormon. Many of the bible beaters she is trying to fire up do not even consider her to be "true Christian".

US Workers Get The Shaft

2006-12-21T08:38:00.000-08:00

US workers are losing big in all categories when compared to the rest of the industrialized world and in some cases we do worse that those in under-developed countries.

The US and China are the only industrialized countries that do not require paid vacation time. Even the traditional voluntary vacation offerings fall far behind the rest of the industrialized world.

The US and Australia are the only industrialized countries that do not require paid sick leave.

US along with countries like Swaziland, Australia, Slovenia, Latvia, Papua New Guinea and Lethoso
are the only countries who do not have paid parental (maternity) leave.

The US is one of the few countries who do not have universal health care. All of the industrialized world except for Mexico, South Africa and Thailand have universal care. The other three who do not are working on implementing it.

The US minimum wage has not gone up in nine years. Today the minimum wage is worth $3.95 when compared to the wage hike in 1996.

While US companies complain they can't afford to pay workers more or provide benefits, Wall Street is bathing in billions in profits. You know, profits from those companies who somehow can't afford to pay their workers a living wage or provide benefits. Bankers at Goldman Sachs are getting holiday bonuses anywhere between $600,000 and $100 million each this year.
That's not their wages, that is their individual holiday bonuses, each.

Companies whine about the high cost of healthcare insurance for their workers. The cost of health insurance has outpaced the increase in wages. As an example in Kansas wages rose 15.6% while the cost of healthcare insurance went up 78.5%.

Studies into the US healthcare system have shown that doing away with employer tied private healthcare insurance would decrease costs by 40% while at the same time providing care for every citizen in the country.

At the same time health insurers are raking in obscene profits:
"As a for-profit enterprise, our health care system has been fabulously successful; and never more so than in the last 6 years. Since 2000, profits for health insurers have risen at double-digit rates for a total increase of over 120% on revenue increases of 21 percent. “They're making boatloads of money,” said Tom Boldt, a senior health-benefits consultant quoted in Investor’s Business Daily. The health insurers have shared some of their profits with their CEOs. Average pay for the five top executives at 16 of the largest health insurers is now over $3 million a year. John Rowe of Aetna was paid $22 million in 2005; and Larry Glasscock at Anthem, was paid $25 million in 2003. Both pay packages are dwarfed by the $125 million received in 2005 by Dr. William J. McGuire of UnitedHealthGroup.

Even with these generous CEO pay packages, investors have done well. The stock price for the 17 largest health insurers has almost tripled since the beginning of 2000. Aetna stock, for example, has gone from barely $7/share to over $40/share today, giving an annual return of over 30%. Profits for companies providing health insurance have risen at the same time that more Americans are losing health insurance and a smaller share of premiums is going towards health care. This coincidence is no accident but is the result of carefully calibrated company policy to reduce coverage for sick people. Aetna, for example, has pushed up its stock while cutting its rolls to 13 million down from 21 million at the end of 1999. Despite a one-third fall in revenues, profits rose nearly eight-fold, to $934 million from $127 million. Company spokesman Fred Laberge explained that “We focused on profitable [emphasis added] growth rather than growth at any cost.” "We lost a lot of membership,” he added, “but we're OK with that.”

Does anyone not get this yet? All of that money your bleeding out of your pockets is not going to try to keep that poor hospital from going under, its buying some investment banker a new Lamborghini.

While the Health Insurance industry is busy rolling in your money, hospitals have adopted more and more aggressive collection methods for those left holding the bills because they were uninsured or their insurance left them burdening a large portion of the bill. Tactics like arresting people for not keeping up payments or seizing homes and bank accounts. The worse is a tactic called "body attachment" where they can arrest people for not paying their bill. This has come under fire in certain states.
""Late one night in 2000, a police cruiser pulls up inside of a house on Mr. Bushman's house. A officer handcuffed the burly truck driver and took him away to jail. The charge, missing a court hearing about a $579 hospital bill. The hospital that pursued Mr. Bushman, a 295-bed, not-for-profit facility called Carle Foundation Hospital is one of several that has at times applied debt collection tactics that are shunned by many other creditors. It has filed hundreds of lawsuits, garnisheed patients' wages and seized tax refunds. Since 1995, Carle, the primary teaching hospital of the University of Illinois confirms that it has sought $164 arrest warrants for debtors who missed court hearings."

None of this would be happening under universal health care and it would cost nearly half overall.

There needs to be drastic changes to the employment landscape and they need to happen now. Do not let the scare tactics fool you, there are very few businesses who would be damaged by these changes. Most of what would impact larger businesses would be to have to give slightly less profit to their shareholders. For smaller businesses, having the healthcare burden removed would make providing other benefits much easier.

9 Out Of 10 People Have Premarital Sex

2006-12-19T17:30:00.000-08:00

This long running survey included people born as far back as the 1940's and concluded that 9 out of 10 people have had premarital sex. Not only did the study show that the concept of abstinence til marriage is not happening, it shows that it hasn't happened in the past either.

Even of those who abstained into their 20's, the majority had premarital sex at some point.

This jaw dropping comment from Bush's in-guy at HHS Wade Horn about the study: "He insisted there was no federal mission against premarital sex among adults.

"Absolutely not," Horn said. "The Bush administration does not believe the government should be regulating or stigmatizing the behavior of adults."

Horn said he found the high percentages of premarital sex cited in the study to be plausible, and expressed hope that society would not look askance at the small minority that chooses to remain abstinent before marriage."

But in October of this year Horn announced the government's abstinence for adults program.

Wow, what a liar.

Of course when confronted with the reality that nobody is paying any attention to her abstinence crusade, Leslee Unruh showed her typical lack of any basis in reality.
"Leslee Unruh, who runs a South Dakota-based organization promoting abstinence-only education, contended that increasing numbers of young people were open to remaining chaste until marriage."

Studies show that most abstinence-only programs do not help teens delay having sex, and some show evidence that these programs actually deter teens who become sexually active from protecting themselves from unintended pregnancy or STDs.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has called it failing and lacking. They are demanding
that teens get the facts on sex education.

Many of the abstinence programs give out false or medically inaccurate information.

Oh, and don't forget Bush just put one of these frothing anti-contraception nuts in charge of federal contraception funding.

Rounds Nominated for "Zero Of The Year"

2006-12-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

Gov. Mike Rounds has been nominated as zero of the year on a NARAL 2006 Heros and Zeros poll. Go here to give Mikey your vote as the biggest zero of 2006.

BTW, SD Healthy Families is on the nomination list of heros.

Another Gay Evangelical Pastor Gets Shoved Out Of The Closet

2006-12-18T17:04:00.000-08:00

Yet another one. Christopher Beard was asked to resign from the same Denver area church that Ted Haggard ran. New Life Church assembled a board to investigate all church staff to weed out any who were gay. This is the third pastor to be outed in the last few months.

It sounds like an epidemic. According to Focus on the Family they get hundreds of calls from gay pastors trying to square who they are with the Evangelical anti-gay church doctrines.

Even in the pews there are many gays who wish to be who they are but still follow the denomination or church that they felt met their religious needs.

For a faith (specifically Evangelical denominations) that is publicly so anti-gay they seem to have a considerable number among them. Don't forget that Haggard was an extremely vocal anti-gay activist before he was outed.

What To Get Us For Christmas

2006-12-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

Rounds Shills For Insurance Industry Using State Funds

2006-12-11T07:40:00.000-08:00

Mikey Rounds is currently using his office to shill for the Long Term Care Insurance industry.

Rounds, a former insurance salesman is pushing a state sponsored campaign to get people to buy long term care insurance. This type of insurance has come under fire for frequently being sold to people who do not need to be buying it at that point in their lives. LTC insurance has also been criticized for companies not being around in 20-40 years when the policy is needed, and you lose all your money. Coverage may be insufficient, or you may not qualify for benefits.

Consumer reports has a good rundown of the pitfalls of this type of insurance.

Long Must Make An Example Out Of Hunt

2006-12-11T07:14:00.000-08:00

AG Larry Long confirms that Roger Hunt did indeed break the law when he illegally funneled campaign funds to Vote Yes on 6 through a sham corporation.

What remains is the action Long will take against Hunt. Hunt's actions were extreme in the amount of money, impact it had on the ballot issue and the clearly questionable actions he took to pull it off. Hunt's arrogance toward the state should also be taken into account, he clearly thinks he is not only above the law, but that he can reinterpret the law for his own needs. Because of this Long needs to make an example out of Roger Hunt. Long should use every method at his disposal and not negotiate on prosecution or sentence demanded.

The issue that should be demanded for resolution above all else is disclosure of the source of the funds he laundered. The citizens of the state have a right to know who attempted to illegally influence on of the most notable ballot issues in state history. We should except no less than full disclosure. Long should get Hunt under oath in court and if he refuses to reveal the source he should be put in jail on contempt of court until he discloses the source.

Hunt should also be expected to face the full sentence. The sentence itself is fairly minor, 30 days in jail and a $200 fine is pretty lax already. He should also not be given the VIP treatment that Janklow received. We should not be giving preferential treatment to someone simply by virtue of their wealth or social status.

Hunt should be made an example that our state will not look the other way and you will not be able to talk your way out of election corruption. Hunt has thumbed his nose at every citizen of our state repeatedly. There were mentioned of similar instances though lesser in nature of other groups trying to conceal funding sources, those too should be pursued but Hunt should be held to full account for his actions.

Both Long and Nelson have said that they want to further clarify the laws so in the future there is less room for people to try to pretend there are loopholes. This does need to be done, it will make things easier, even though the laws already there are clear. In addition to further clarification the penalties need to be increased. Make it a felony, make the jail sentence one year and increase the fine to $10,000 per incident.

Long needs to begin prosecution before the next legislative session.

Free EC Day!

2006-12-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

Wednesday December 6th is FREE EC DAY!

Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls and Rapid City is giving away Plan B this Wednesday.
You must be 18 and have ID in hand.

VISIT EITHER THE SIOUX FALLS OR RAPID CITY PLANNED PARENTHOOD CLINIC
AND RECEIVE FREE EC!!
Sioux Falls
6511 W. 41st St.
10:00-6:00
605-361-5100

Rapid City
619 Mountainview Rd.
(back side of Baken Park)
3:00-7:00
605-341-2545

With only 50% of the pharmacies in the state carrying Plan B and who knows how many pharmacists ready to push their religious agenda on women in South Dakota having Plan B on hand is a very smart idea. Even if you don't think you would ever need it, someone you know might.

Ruh Roh!

2006-12-04T19:23:00.000-08:00

The White House and the FDA may find themselves in a bunch of trouble over their purposefully stalling Plan B going OTC and the stupid under 18 age restriction.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has gotten approval from a New York judge that will allow them to subpoena White House officials and questions them about their involvement in the three year delay on the drug with the FDA.

And the reason for all of this? Pandering to the religious right. Do we even need to point out how many abortions not having access to Plan B may have caused in the White House effort to appease "the base". BTW, isn't Al Quaeda arabic for "the base"? Hrmmm..

As far back as 2003, then-FDA commissioner Mark McClellan agreed to an unprecedented meeting with a White House domestic policy adviser to discuss the Plan B application. And Dr. Janet Woodcock (who also warned that Plan B would create teen sex cults) came right out and said Plan B shouldn't be sold over-the-counter to teens -- not because of the science but "to appease the administration's constituents."

Read the rest of this at Feministing.

Teen Pregnancy Down. Guess Why?

2006-12-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

Contraception.

The American Journal of Public Health and Columbia University have concluded a study on teen pregnancy. The good news is teen pregnancy is down 34%. The study showed that 86% of that was due to improved use of contraception. Only 14% of that was credited toward reduced sexual activity. Of that 14% when you look at the other factors in the study it shows that much of that is simply due to teens becoming sexually active later in life.

The abstinence only pushers may be quick to jump on that small fraction and claim it as their success but they would be very wrong. The study showed that when teens hit age 18 that 100% of the decline was due to contraception use. There are also a number of factors that could be contributing to teens delaying sex. Differing lifestyles than in previous decades, more access to other activities and more attention being paid to teens at risk and programs for inner city youth. The study found that abstinence only education was flawed and could pose to deteriorate the current success if the government chooses to abandon traditional sex education for teens in lieu of the religious based abstinence only programs.

"These data suggest that the US appears to be following patterns seen in other developed countries where increased availability and increased use of modern contraceptives have been primarily responsible for declines in teenage pregnancy rates," Santelli and colleagues write.

"Our findings," they conclude, "raise questions about current U.S. government policies that promote abstinence from sexual activity as the primary strategy to prevent adolescent pregnancy.""

Someone needs to hand this study to each and every legislator, should they attempt to institute "abstinence only" education as law again this session.

Abortion May PREVENT Breast Cancer

2006-12-01T07:55:00.000-08:00

To be exact the abortion pill RU-486 has been found to possibly have the properties to prevent breast cancer.

"No one is suggesting women use the abortion pill that way. But the provocative experiment helped illustrate how the notorious breast cancer gene BRCA1 does its dirty work, by spurring a hormone called progesterone that RU-486 happens to block."

Why this is so important is that now researchers can look to refine or spin off the aspect of that drug that can control or suppress progesterone for women who are at risk for breast cancer.

The research also has the nice side effect of providing yet another example to refute the made up claim frequently used by anti-choicers that abortion causes breast cancer.

Rounds Version Of Results

2006-11-30T07:36:00.000-08:00

Mikey Rounds in his great leadership has screwed a great opportunity for the state into a total mess. Homestake mine had a huge potential for the state economy and specifically the economy ou t in the hills. Rounds mismanaged and failed at every turn.

As Northern Valley Beacon mentioned, Rounds missed a huge opportunity by ignoring the value of in-state higher education in this project. He never bothered to get the state universities involved in promoting or supporting the project. The competing site for the project has direct involvement with promoting the project from the nearby universities.

Dakota Today also weighs in on this mess. What is totally inexcusable is that Rounds and the State have allowed the mine to fill with water rendering it unusable and turning the highly desireable site into something the science community doesn't even want to consider now. By turning off the pumps the killed the project. This had something to do with questions on environmental hazards. So instead of dealing with the transfer and liability issue, or offering to pay for the pumping costs while they figured out the other issue, Rounds did nothing. The current owner opted to turn off the pumps due to costs. Again, inaction and bumbling has cost the state dearly. This kind of incompetence sounds like the Page execuation mess and Mikey's handling of the abortion ban.

What could have been one of the largest economic development issues and status symbols of the state finally dragging itself into the current century is gone due to mismanagement.

Todd Epp mentions that we, the taxpayers actually own the $20 million dollar shack with the worlds largest hot tub. Why Rounds refused to deal with the minor issue of keeping it pumped out while they debated the enviromental issue is beyond comprehension.

Maybe Mikey can get us some more credit card call center jobs, boy that would be a great replacement for a national laboratory!
Mikey gives us great stuff like the waste of money in a hard to find website begging people to come back to South Dakota.

If you want to see more of the train wreck that is the Homestake project check out the state website on the project. What really sticks out is the blatant lack of relevant experience and credentials of the people on the board for this project. Not a scientist or large scale development person among them. Many of these people are also on the state economic development board, this probably explains why the state economic development is in such sad shape. One has to wonder if these people happen to be friends of Rounds since their qualifications don't say much about their ability to move the state forward.

South Dakota should be tapping (for the Economic Development Board) the creative talent of people like Dana Dykhouse (First Premier), Jim Morgan (Daktronics), Dennis Sanford (First Premier), department chairs of science, technology and business schools at the state universities, and good PR people. Tom Brokaw would be a great example of a South Dakotan with name recognition and a perfect PR face to lead things.